


The Only Thing He Could Possibly Wish For

by orphan_account



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Blindness, Disability, Fluff, General Illness, Hospitals, Kind of slow build, M/M, Mental Illness (mentioned), Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Romance, Young!team, sick!Aaron, sick!Spencer, teenfic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-15
Updated: 2015-08-17
Packaged: 2018-04-09 12:30:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 28,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4348859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Battles are fought, tears are shed, friendships are forged, and Aaron Hotchner learns what it’s like to fall desperately, madly, completely in love, knowing all too well just how close he is to losing everything.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arc 1 Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to note that in this story there is a character with borderline personality disorder. She is meant in to way to represent my opinion of borderline people as a whole; she is merely on person who happens to have this disorder. This also goes for all other characters and their respective illnesses. No stereotyping, ableism, or offense is intended whatsoever.
> 
> I'd also like to note this is my first time publishing on this website and I'm getting used to the format and everything so if I do something stupid like, say, messing up the chapters somehow, I will fix it. I swear.

Aaron put his suitcase at the end of his bed, sat down, and stared silently at the ceiling. So much had happened that day, and he wished he could just close his eyes and go to sleep but he was too wired. Wired and nervous. His mother had taken dropped him off this morning, practically holding his hand through the admission process. He had undergone a perfunctory medical exam by a nurse and filled out so much paperwork with his mother that his wrist hurt. Then his mother had tearfully left, hugging him and kissing his cheek like a little boy, which both embarrassed Aaron and relieved him.

It was hard watching her go. The whole morning, though it had only been a few hours, had depleted his emotional reserves. He was already desperate to be home again, completely out of his depth here. 

“It’s my job to make you feel at home here!” one of the admission ladies had told him cheerfully as she escorted Aaron to his room. She was blond and colorful, with a wide smile, and she wasn’t wearing hospital scrubs. Penelope, she had told him to call her.

After his mother had left, Penelope had introduced herself to him and begun giving him a tour of the hospital--or the ward, mostly. They passed a cafeteria, a gym, a swimming pool, a classroom that had been full of kids aging from about nine to seventeen, and then an area Penelope had described as “teen heaven.”

“There’s a game room, a movie room, a computer room, and a lounge,” she had said enthusiastically. “Just for teens. This is where a lot of them spend their time, and I hope you’ll make a lot of friends here!”

“How many teens are being treated here?” Aaron had asked, surprised that there could be so many other kids his age. He had assumed he would be one of the only other teens. But then, he had assumed a lot of things about the hospital, and many of them were being proven wrong.

“Right now, the pediatrics ward is at about three-quarters of its capacity,” Penelope had answered. “That’s about forty kids, a little over half of which are under the age of twelve. So I’d say about twenty kids thirteen or older.”

“Oh.” For a second he was glad that he wouldn’t be lonely--then the significance of the numbers hit him, and he just became slightly depressed. That’s a lot of sick kids. 

But the hospital was more homely than he had imagined. He had pictured basically the rooms like his grandfather had stayed in as he had died--plain, white, empty, and depressing. But here, it was more like a comfortable hotel aimed at kids. 

“A lot of people imagine the type of hospital ward that’s usually temporary, the kind you see when you visit someone who’s sick, with those horrible rooms,” Penelope had remarked as she led him along, as if she had read his thoughts. “It’s actually designed to make your stay as comfortable as possible, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.”

“Definitely not what I imagined,” Aaron had agreed, gazing around the halls decorated with drawings and colorful wall decals and murals. His stomach still turned over, and his chest felt fluttery, which might actually be from his illness instead of nerves. This may seem comfortable, but this wasn’t a pleasure stay. 

Penelope had then led him to the wing where he would be living. They passed a few other kids on the way, of all ages and races and genders, in wheelchairs or on crutches or looking relatively normal. Most gave him a curious glance as they passed by, and maybe a wave.

“I hope you don’t mind having a roommate,” Penelope had said. “I think you’ll like him, though.” Her affection for him had been obvious, and Aaron had taken that moment to give her a more thorough glance over. She didn’t seem old enough to be working here; in fact, she looked like she could barely be out of high school, two years older than him at most. She certainly dressed vibrantly, with a flower patterned dress and orange high heels, plus bulky necklaces and rings to match her neon glasses, and Aaron couldn’t help but think that if there was ever anyone who could cheer up sick kids in a hospital, this woman was it. 

The room was actually quite comfortable. The wall separating the room and the hallway was filled with window panes with a curtain to pull in front of them, and in addition to two twin sized beds, there was a sofa, two beanbag chairs, a flat screen television, two dressers, two desks, and an adjacent bathroom. The wall opposite the door was glass, overlooking the city. The roommate himself was absent.

The left side of the room already had a lived-in feel to it. The wall was painted blue and silver, with plastic letters that Aaron would assume Penelope had designed, as they matched her style, in addition to taped up photographs, hanging origami creatures, posters, scribbled writing, and small patches of wall that Aaron’s new roommate had apparently painted on himself. A green lava lamp stood on the cluttered bedside table next to a Lego model, a telescope, and a strange looking alarm clock, and a keyboard leaned against the wall. The bed had a blue bedspread and the desk by the outside window was just as cluttered as the bedside table, and on top of all that, tons of books were scattered across the room. Some were in stacks or piles, others were left open on the bed, and still others leaned so precariously across every conceivable surface that Aaron couldn’t understand how they hadn’t fallen over. On top of that, ripped notebook paper, creased origami paper, colorful socks, photographs, sheets of music, and various articles of folded clothing were scattered all over the left side of the room. It looked organized in a very disorganized way. 

Now, Penelope seemed quiet as she waited for him to process everything, his eyes glued to the ceiling. He absently noticed several glow in the dark stars as she sat down next to him, the mattress dipping slightly. 

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Penelope said gently. “I’m available to at least call almost twenty-four--”

“Baby girl!”

The sudden voice had him turning towards the door, startled. He had heard approaching footsteps but assumed whoever it was would walk right past. Instead, the dark skinned teen standing in the doorway grinned first at Penelope, than at Aaron, before sauntering shamelessly into the room. Aaron figured this was probably his roommate; he looked about the same age, maybe a little younger. 

“This the newbie?” the teen asked, giving Aaron a once over. “Aaron Hotchner, right? I’m Derek Morgan.” He stuck out his hand to shake and Aaron stood up and shook it firmly. 

“Hi. Nice to meet you,” he said pleasantly. 

“Same! Okay--” and he turns to Penelope-- “did you see yesterday’s episode of Wayward Pines? Please tell me you did. Please, woman.”

“Derek!” she scolded. “I’m in the middle of something here.”

“But my slot starts in five minutes and you know how Rossi is about me being late!” Derek protested. He took a step back and gestured to himself. “I’m not even dressed yet!”

Penelope rolled her eyes and leaned over to speak to Aaron, who was studying Derek curiously. “Derek is a student in the New Visions program from some high school in DC, and he spends more time in this ward than he really should.” She spoke the last part louder for Derek’s benefit, who grinned cheekily. 

“This is where the cool kids hang!” he exclaimed. “Can you blame me?” He winked at Penelope, who pretended to huff indignantly, causing Derek’s grin to widen. “Anyway,” he continued, looking around, “speaking of the cool kids, where is he?”

“Physical therapy,” Penelope answered. “You know, where you should be?”

Derek looked surprised. “What do you mean? We’re still in the hospice week cycle.”

“No, you aren’t,” she said. “That ended last week. Physical therapy started today, and Rossi and the others wanted all the students to come an hour early today, remember? They passed out multiple memos last week.” 

“F-f-f-fuuuck!” Derek shouted, slapping his forehead and reaching for his bag to run out of the room, but he was too late. Before he could even reach the door, a middle aged man with dark hair appeared in the doorway. Aaron had to hide his smile in his hand; Derek’s expression was priceless. 

“Mr. Morgan,” said the man in scrubs. “I thought it would be unnecessary to explain why that kind of language isn’t appropriate in this particular ward. Or in this building, period.”

“Sorry, Rossi,” Derek muttered. 

Rossi looked over Derek’s shoulder into the room, his bright gaze sliding over Penelope, then to Aaron, where they rested for several seconds before he approached him. 

“Hotchner, isn’t it?” Rossi asked kindly. If Aaron had to guess, he would’ve said Rossi was of Italian descent. He nodded.

“Yes sir.”

Rossi smiled. “None of that ‘yes sir’ business here, son. We’re all just here to get you back up on your feet. Unless you’re Derek,” he added, turning and giving the boy in question a narrow-eyed, knowing glance. Derek froze midway out the door, looking guilty. He gave an awkward little wave, like “Hi, I’m still here, no I wasn’t trying to escape.”

Rossi turned back to Aaron and patted his shoulder, and for some reason it really did comfort him somewhat. “If you ever need anything, you can hit the call button on the phone over there by your bed, or, if you just want to chat, I’m always available. I’m Nurse David, by the way. Everyone just calls me Rossi.”

“Okay Nur--I mean, Rossi,” Aaron said with an awkward smile. Rossi patted his shoulder one more time before turning back to Derek and giving him a stern look. He swiftly grabbed the boy by his collar and promptly dragged him out of the room, Derek more or less following limply behind like a chastised kid. Penelope giggled and, just before the two vanished from sight, Derek grinned impishly at Penelope and threw up a peace sign. Then they were gone, leaving behind only the faint sound of Rossi’s grumbling, becoming fainter and fainter the farther they went before fading away entirely. 

“Sorry about that,” Penelope said, patting his knee as she stood up. “Unfortunately, you’re probably going to be seeing a lot of him during your stay here. He really does like to hang out with the kids in the ward here, particularly Spencer and JJ. He’s a good guy, though.” She beamed down at him. 

“So…” Aaron said. “Where’s… my roommate? I’d like to meet him.”

“Oh, he’s in physical therapy right now. He should be out in a little under an hour, but until then, lunch? You’re probably hungry by now.”

Now that he thought about it, he was hungry. It surprised him; this morning he had been far too anxious to even consider eating. But now he had calmed down enough to smile, and he did so just then. “Yeah,” he said. “That sounds like a great idea.”


	2. Arc 1 Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Well that, there, is classified information, Mister Hotchner. You have to be at least a level five friend to be privy to that particular backstory, and you’re not even a level one.”

“So, JJ and I had a thought,” said a dark haired girl as she dropped her tray casually onto the table right next to Aaron’s, causing him to glance up with one eyebrow raised.

“Hello,” he said drily. 

“Hi,” said the girl, nodding to the blonde now sitting across from him. “That’s JJ. I’m Emily. And we had a thought.”

“Really?” Aaron said. “And what’s that?”

“Well, you’re new,” said JJ, before taking a bite of her sandwich. 

Aaron just looked at her. “I believe you might’ve mentioned that.”

“Yes,” Emily said, glancing at JJ and rolling her eyes. “Anyway--”

“So it looks like the party’s over here!”

This was a new voice, a new tray dropped on to the table next to Aaron’s. He looked up with a slight frown, wondering if everyone here wanted to be in his business. He had chosen an empty table for a reason, after all, even if he had been wishing Penelope could have stayed with him. 

“Go away, Hannah,” said JJ sourly.

“No,” Hannah shot back, not even sparing the blond girl a glance. Instead, she looked at Aaron and smiled.

“Hi! My name’s Hannah. You’re Aaron, right? What are you in for?”

“Hannah!” Emily hissed, but Hannah just waved her off in annoyance and beamed broadly at Aaron, waiting for his response. Apparently, asking a patient what his illness was was uncouth behavior here.

“Yes, my name’s Aaron,” he replied coolly. “I have arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy.” And, because she had asked and he had answered, he added innocently, “And you?”

“Borderline,” she sniped shortly. She tossed her glossy brown hair over one shoulder and leaned in towards him with what she seemed to think was a seductive smile. Aaron wondered how the hospital staff let her get away with dressing that way; her top was cut so low--yeah, Aaron thought, not even going to go there.

“So,” she whispered in his ear, twirling a lock of hair with her finger. She smelled overwhelmingly of cloying mangos. “I heard you’re little Spencer’s new roommate.”

“Leave him alone, Hannah,” JJ snapped. 

Hannah’s gaze went from seductive to acidic in less than a second. Aaron raised his eyebrows and leaned ever-so-slightly away, thinking Oh, shit. 

“Oh. It’s little Jennifer,” Hannah said with mock sweetness. “I hadn’t noticed you over there. I thought I heard somewhere that you were visiting your sister today--oh, wait!” Aaron saw JJ flinch and Hannah laughed. “I forgot! Little Rosaline’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Hey!” Aaron snapped. Rosaline, whoever she was, was clearly a sore topic for JJ, and he couldn’t abide Hannah’s bullying. She barely spared him a glance, though, instead staring intensely at JJ and continuing, “You think you’re so great, you’re just too cool to hang out with the mental patients, huh, Jennifer? Instead you surround yourself with little blind boys and suffering kids, because you’re afraid you’re just as crazy as the rest of us. Hate to break it to you, sweetie, but you’re locked up with us for a reason.”

“You want to go, Hannah?” said Emily furiously, her body going taut as a bowstring, hands curling into fists. She had half risen out of her seat. “You want a fight?”

Hannah’s eyes narrowed on Emily. “And look who else is here! Emily My-Trust-Fund-Is-Over-A-Million-Fucking-Dollars Prentiss. Did you know--” she turned to Aaron now, her eyebrows raised like whatever information she was about to share still shocked her, “--did you know that Emily Prentiss isn’t even sick? Oh, no, she could have a normal life and normal friends, but instead she hangs out with mental girls and pathetic little sick boys. Does hanging out with the less fortunates make you happy, Emily? Do you get off on being the healthiest person in the room, the one with the longest lifespan?”

“You shut the hell up, Hannah,” said JJ lowly, and her face had changed into a mask of calm once again. She took a bite from her sandwich and gave Emily a warning look. Emily scowled.

“Go. Away,” she growled. Hannah smirked. 

“I don’t take orders from you,” she sneered. “Requests, either. This isn’t your table.” And once again she turned her smile on Aaron, who shifted in his seat. “Isn’t that right, Aaron?”

“Are you saying that this is my table?” he asked.

“You sat down first. You decide who sits with you.”

He looked at her impassively. Then he said, “Alright, look. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that being mean doesn’t get you what you want?”

“What?” she spluttered indignantly. “I don’t want to be around those two--” While she tried to think of a word to describe them, Aaron interjected, “You’re clearly jealous, though. First you shamed JJ for not wanting to be around people from the mental ward, like you, which means you’re jealous that she’s hanging out with other people. It also shows you’re insecure about being in the mental ward in the first place and you’re jealous that JJ isn’t. Secondly, you shamed Emily for having friends here even though she herself isn’t sick, which means you envy her normal life and think she isn’t taking advantage of all the opportunities you think she has but doesn’t deserve. And thirdly, you referred to people in this ward, in general or with specific people in mind, with excessive contempt, which tells me you’re overcompensating. Judging by your use of language--’suffering,’ ‘less fortunate,’ and your mention of Emily’s longer lifespan--you would rather be here suffering from a disease that could possibly kill you than suffer from a mental disorder, because you think a disease like mine or someone else’s here is more glamorous than your illness, but you will gladly hide behind your diagnosis like it’s some kind of excuse or disability. Borderline personality disorder is no excuse to treat people that way. Now, please leave me alone.”

Hannah was looking at him. Aaron could feel her eyes on him as he calmly took a sip of water from his glass, but he refused to meet her gaze until he waited ten seconds and she still hadn’t left. He looked at her again and said “Please?”

The pure disbelief on her face was almost comical, but Aaron knew laughing would ruin the effect, so he looked at Emily and JJ and said, “So you were talking about how I was new?”

Emily and JJ were smirking. For a second Hannah just sat looking stunned before she huffed and walked away without another word, and Aaron couldn’t help but prevent a small snort from escaping.

“She’s really… a piece of work, isn’t she?” Aaron remarked. 

“Honestly? I think you said it--being borderline doesn’t give her an excuse to be a bitch.” That was Emily speaking. She dipped her spoon into her bowl of yogurt and put it in her mouth before adding, “I tried stepping lightly around her when I first met her because of it, but she just takes takes takes. And she seems to hate everyone here except for a few friends and Penelope.”

“Penelope. The blond lady?”

“You met Penelope already?” JJ asked, surprised. 

Aaron looked up at her. “Yeah. She checked me in and gave me the tour. Why is that surprising?”

“She doesn’t usually do the tours,” Emily explained. “Usually the nurses do that. Penelope’s more like a volunteer guidance counselor.”

“She’s a volunteer?”

“Yep. She just graduated high school, actually. She likes helping kids.” 

“So, the plan,” JJ interjected. She glanced at the wall clock, then at Emily. “We don’t have a lot of time left.”

“Okay.” The two girls leaned their heads in conspiratorially towards Aaron, bodies taut with urgent energy. 

“We need you to steal the valet’s keys so we can get Dr. Strauss’ convertible.”

“What?” Aaron looked from one girl to the other. “You aren’t serious.”

“We are dead serious,” said JJ seriously. “Mark, the valet on duty, already knows Emily and me, but you could get past him and throw him off our scent, because you’re new.”

“You want to steal someone’s car? You want me to help you steal someone’s car?”

“Spoken like a true ametuer.” Emily rolled her eyes at JJ before look back at Aaron. “Do I have to beg? Because I will beg. This is super important. Please. Please. Please please please help us steal this car, please please please--”

“Oh my god!” Aaron exclaimed incredulously. “Why do you want to steal this car so badly?”

The girls glanced at each other. Some kind of telepathic communication seemed to take place, and Aaron hoped he wasn’t consorting with teen criminals. Finally, the two girls looked back at him. 

“Here’s the thing,” JJ said, “there are two types of people in the world, and only two. There are the people who want to protect Spencer Reid, and the people we want to protect him from. So, you’re his new roommate. Pick a side.”

Aaron really wasn’t sure how to respond, nor what this had to do with stealing a car. What was it about this Spencer Reid person? “I’ve never even met him,” he said eventually, his shoulders shrugging helplessly like What the hell is even going on? This was a goddam hospital, not a drama-filled high school cafeteria. “What does this have to do with stealing someone’s car? Which is highly illegal, I might add.” 

“Spencer’s family is coming to visit him tomorrow,” JJ explained, “and… well, he needs all the support he can get.”

“I’m guessing he doesn’t get along with them.”

“Well that, there, is classified information, Mister Hotchner,” Emily said imperiously. “You have to be at least a level five friend to be privy to that particular backstory, and you’re not even a level one. But if you do this one thing, we’ll think about letting you in.”

“I still don’t get what this has to do with stealing a car,” Aaron said.

“We’re going to take him for a ride, you moron,” she answered with yet another eye roll. 

“You mean a joyride,” he corrected. For all she seemed to insult him, Aaron preferred bantering with her and JJ than talking to Hannah. He had to admit, this stay wasn’t shaping up to be as boring as he had thought. Things were definitely taking a turn for the better, and he would be lying if he said the idea of doing something like that, though it could go horribly wrong, was slightly thrilling.

“Exactly,” Emily grinned. “A joyride. Not an ordinary ride. A joyful one. If you do this, we’ll even let you come with.”

“Do any of you even know how to drive?” Aaron said challengingly, pretending he hadn’t already decided. 

“You bet I know how to drive,” Emily answered, the corners of her mouth quirking upward dangerously. 

“Spence could use some fresh air, anyway,” JJ said with a grin. 

Aaron chuckled once and looked from one girl to the other. “And what if I say no?”

He hadn’t expected them to take his question seriously, but he gave them both pause. After a moment, JJ said seriously, “If you loved someone, really loved someone, wouldn’t you do everything in your power to make them happy?”

If he hadn’t already planned on saying yes, he wouldn’t have ever been able to say no to that.


	3. Arc 1 Part 3

JJ and Emily guided him through the hospital and out the front door, speed walking through the halls slightly ahead of him with their heads together as they murmured their plans. Aaron was content just to follow, slightly bemused, slightly amused, and slightly overcome with a kind of nervous energy only felt when one’s about to  break the rules. Aaron didn’t really know what would happen if he got caught--they couldn’t really kick him out, could they?

“Keep up, Hotchner!” Emily called gaily, and JJ laughed. Aaron couldn’t help but smile back. It was clear to him these two were the troublemaking experts of the peds floor, or perhaps the whole hospital; they had an air of experience that told him they’d pulled stunts like this before. Before they had left on their mission, the three had exchanged phone numbers, but had left the cafeteria almost immediately afterwards, leaving their lunches behind.

Outside, the sounds of the city and the heat of summer assaulted Aaron all at once. Emily and JJ grabbed his arms and pulled him along the front of the building alongside the parking lot, their pace increasing as JJ checked her watch and declared it to be a quarter to one.

“Why does the time matter?” Aaron asked as they pulled him eagerly along.

“Spencer gets out of physical therapy at one,” JJ explained. “We’re going to--hide!”

Without hesitation, the girls threw themselves against the wall, dragging Aaron with them. He gasped with surprise as his body made painful contact with the brick, nearly knocking the wind out of him.

“What--?”

“Shhh!” Emily hissed.

He shut his mouth. A second later, a young man aged somewhere in his twenties walked by, swinging a small chain that jingled in the wind.  He was wearing a uniform that reminded Aaron of an old fashioned hotel bellhop, and he resisted the urge to laugh. Mark--assuming this was Mark--passed by without seeing them, and when he was out of earshot, Aaron turned to glare at the other girls.

“Okay, ow?” he said, rubbing his arm. “A little warning next time?”

“So that’s Mark,” Emily said, ignoring him as she began steering him into the direction Mark had come from. “He’s the valet on duty right now. He’s studying bugs at the university--”

“Entomology?” Aaron inserted.

JJ rolled her eyes as she jogged beside him. “Tomato, tomahto.”

“--And his favorite artists are Metallica and Lady Gaga,” Emily finished, shooting them both a sideways glare. Aaron shrugged.

The girls stopped him at the entrance to the parking garage and leaned just out of sight of the valet stand. Aaron looked at them uncertainly. “So I just--how, exactly, am I supposed to do this?”

“Go in, grab the key, get out,” said JJ simply, like it was nothing. Like she was just telling him directions to the nearest supermarket.

He looked at her. “Okay,” he said, “I figured that out, but which key?”

“Strauss’ valet key got lost a few days ago,” Emily explained, and Aaron had the feeling it didn’t just get lost, “so her key is the one on a keychain with the mini set of dice and a model of the Eiffel Tower. Now, go!”

And she bodily shoved him towards the stand, nearly causing him to fall. He regained his footing and glared back at her, but she had JJ just gestured frantically at him to keep going. So he did.

He looked nervously over his shoulder as he approached, unsure how long he had until Mark would come back. Luckily, no one else was around. Maybe this would be his lucky break. Who would leave a valet stand full of keys unattended? Aaron thought.

He reached the stand and scanned the compartments, all numbered, most filled with keys. Most of them were single keys while a few were attached to whole key chains, and Aaron quickly located the one he needed by the silver Eiffel Tower attached. Unfortunately, he quickly realized, grabbing it wasn’t going to be as easy as he thought; the compartment was locked. He looked frantically around for a key to open it, underneath a few papers and an entomology textbook open to a page on millipedes, but he couldn’t find a single key, let alone one that fit the lock.

Aaron looked up and met Emily’s gaze as she poked her head around the corner, her expression portraying her exasperation. She threw in the hands in the air as a question, asking him wordlessly what was taking him so long.

“It’s locked!” Aaron called, and Emily frowned.

“So pick the lock!” she called back as though it was obvious. He gave her an incredulous look back.

“How the hell am I supposed to do that?”

Only it turned out he wouldn’t have to. He jimmied the tiny plastic door in pure frustration when suddenly, with a large ripping, crash, the whole thing fell off its hinges. Aaron jumped at the sound and his hand reflexively spasmed to the side, knocking over a clear mason jar with his elbow and causing it to crash to the ground, the sound of cracking glass echoing throughout the parking garage.

“What was that?” JJ yelled.

“Ah… nothing! Nothing, everything’s fine!” He hoped. He hadn’t seen anything in the jar, but who just has an empty jar hanging around? Never mind, it didn’t matter. Someone was coming.

“Shit shit shit shit shit shit,” Aaron hissed under his breath as the footsteps got closer and closer. He reached into the compartment, nicking himself slightly on the jagged plastic, and snatched the keys. Mark would be coming around the corner at any moment--

Too late.

Mark stopped at the sight of him. “The hell are you?” he said, his tone friendly rather than angry. Aaron felt his face heat up.

“Um… my name is... “ Should he give his name? Maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea. He could get caught. “Jason!” he shouted. “My name is Jason… Grant… Fitzgerald… the third.” Inwardly he winced, already regretting his misguided decision to take on a pseudonym. The girls, damn them, smuggled laughter as they watched him fumble his way through an excuse.

Mark’s eyebrows rose nearly to his hairline as he started walking towards the stand. “Oh,” he said, “nice to meet you Jason. Can I call you Jason? What are you doing?

“Uh…” Aaron tried not to look too guilty. A guilty person will fidget and either make no eye contact or excessive eye contact, so Aaron tried not to fidget. It was surprisingly hard. He kept glancing down at the fallen jar, the top having popped off and cracked on the ground. “I just… I saw your textbook! Yeah, on millipedes, right?” The relief that he had found a cover story, weak as it was, was nearly overwhelming. He took it and ran with it. “Aren’t millipedes fascinating?” he babbled. “I mean, that they don’t even have a thousand legs. The name millipede is kind of a misnomer, don’t you think?” Aaron actually had no idea if millipedes really had a thousand legs or not, but it seemed unlikely and he literally had nothing else to say. Mark hadn’t corrected him though, so he turned back to the textbook and pretended to act interested instead of mildly repulsed and extremely nervous (about the millipedes and Mark, respectively).

“‘When millipedes hatch, they only have three pairs of legs,’” Aaron read quickly, turning to Mark and forcing a laugh. “Wow! I didn’t know that! Isn’t that interesting!”

“Isn’t it?” Mark said eagerly, coming closer as his entire demeanor began to warm up. “No one else thinks bugs are this interesting! Hey, did you know that millipedes curl up into tiny balls when threatened? Their backs are covered with tergites for protection but their undersides are completely vulnerable! Not only that, they have ozopores that emit chemicals that can burn and blister! Pretty sweet, right?”

Aaron bit his lip and raised his eyebrows in an exaggerated expression of fascination, nodding his head. “Yep,” he managed. “Pretty sweet.”

Mark gave him a sly look. “Hey,” he said. “Want to see a real one up close?”

No, not really. Aaron had never really liked bugs, but the more the legs, the less likely he wanted to see one up close and personal. Not only that, Mark was coming around to the back of the stand, where the broken door and the broken jar were clearly visible. Aaron’s heart rate sped up exponentially.

“Actually!” he almost shouted in his haste, waving his arms a bit and jerking himself into Mark’s path. Mark stopped and looked at him and Aaron stared back, trying to think of a way to distract him. But his brain pulled up a blank.

“I mean…” His mouth went dry. Mark seemed to think something was wrong with him.

“What?” Mark said, giving him a strange look. Aaron eyed the girls over Mark’s shoulder, who were frantically gesturing for him to hurry up, then looked back at Mark, wide-eyed. “Uh… well… that is…”

His gaze dropped to the jar. The lidless jar. The empty jar.

“Oh, no way…” he muttered.

“What?” Mark said in exasperation.

But all Aaron could give was a helpless, “Are you serious?”

Mark and Aaron stared at each other for several seconds, and by the time Mark looked away Aaron was braced to run. But just as he was about to take off, a car pulled down the driveway and pulled to a stop right next to the valet stand--right in the path of Aaron’s escape route.

Mark held up one hand and approached the window to speak to the driver. Aaron glanced around, trying to decide if he could get away without alarming Mark, and he was inching around to the front of the stand, by the car window where Mark and a woman were talking, when he felt something on his hand. He froze. That tickling sensation…

Aaron wasn’t proud of the noise he made when he looked down at his hand and saw a gigantic millipede crawling up his wrist. Later, he would say he yelled. JJ and Emily would gleefully tell him he shrieked. Whatever it was, it made a fantastic distraction, thought Aaron wasn’t exactly thinking when he sent the millipede flying… right into the open car window.

If Aaron shrieked, the woman in the car downright screamed. Then Mark was shouting and the woman in the car was thrashing in her seat, her voice piercing and actually pretty terrifying, and people started cursing loudly and hitting things and Aaron just ran as fast as he possible could, outside and across the lawn with JJ and Emily right behind him. As he ran he pulled the key out of his pocket and lifted it over his head, an accomplished grin splitting across his face, and behind him, JJ and Emily laughed with the giddy pleasure of triumph.

Sure, Aaron felt a little bad about flicking that millipede onto that woman, but at the moment the euphoria of breaking the rules eclipsed any remorse.

Until JJ and Emily caught up to him as they approached the front door, laughing hysterically like that was the single funniest thing either of them had ever seen. 

“That was--”

“Oh my god, Hotchner--”

“Have you ever seen anything that--”

“--Priceless?”

JJ and Emily looked at each other and promptly burst out laughing again, nearly doubled over.

“Alright, alright,” Aaron said, but he was grinning as well.

“No no no,” JJ giggled breathlessly. “You don’t understand. That was Ms. Moore.” She couldn’t even finish the thought before she was once again overcome with laughter, so Emily had to finish, her voice high pitched as she tried to speak through her giggling.

“Ms. Moore,” Emily explained between peals of laughter, “is Spencer’s foster mother.”

Wait. What?

“Spencer’s foster mother?!” he shouted.

“We’ll deal with this later!” JJ interrupted, still grinning. “But right now, we have a patient to kidnap. Emily, get him up to speed.”

 


	4. Arc 1 Part 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter Spencer Reid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love every single one of you who left kudos. Just saying.

 

JJ and Aaron raced through the halls, shoes squeaking across the glistening floors, dodging various of the hospital staff and patients. If they hadn’t been in a hurry, they were now—they had to get Spencer before Ms. Moore came up to see him, otherwise they weren’t going to be able to sneak him out.

“You do the distraction!” JJ yelled to him. “I’ll get Spence!”

“Why do I have to do the distraction?” Aaron complained, swerving around a stunned looking nurse.

“You don’t even know who Spence is!”

“Right,” he answered, and then he was sprinting up the stairs with JJ slightly ahead of him, leaping up the stairs two by two and sometimes three by three. Emily was outside in the parking garage retrieving the car, which hopefully wouldn’t take too long, but none of them knew exactly where the car was parked. By now it was just past one, and JJ was counting on Spencer being in his room, but in order to get him past the nurses without an alarm being raised they needed a distraction.

What exactly the distraction was going to be, Aaron hadn’t decided yet. But he was going to have to be quick about it; they were steadily approaching the sixth floor.

JJ reached it first, throwing the stairwell doors open and bursting through like a rocket, Aaron close at her heels, but when they entered the ward Aaron slowed to a casual walk, dropping away behind her. JJ disappeared from his sight.

Aaron eyed the nurses’ station in the room, where two nurses were sitting. He recognized one of them as Rossi, and the other as one of the nurses who had been there at his admission—Nurse Jillian, he remembered.

Pressing one of the call buttons would be cruel, as would pulling the fire alarm. He needed to think of something and he needed to think of something fast.

Then the elevator dinged. The instant Aaron knew who it was, he dropped to the ground and hid behind a tall potted plant, silently cursing over and over in his head.

“Where is Jason Fitzgerald?” Mark shouted. He stormed out of the elevator and over to the nurse’s station, where both the nurses looked up with surprise.

“Who are you?” Rossi asked.

“I’m Mark, the valet,” said Mark, his face turning almost purple. “Tell me where Jason Fitzgerald is. He stole one of the keys!”

Aaron hid a grin behind his hand and peeked out from behind the plant in time to see Rossi looking at Mark like he had grown two heads.

“Jason Fitzgerald?” Rossi repeated slowly.

Nurse Jillian interrupted. “There is no one here by that name. I’m sorry.”

“No,” said Mark angrily. “I know there is. He said his name was—his name was Jason Grant Fitzgerald and he took one of my keys!”

That was when the idea struck, and Aaron’s lips curled into a devious grin. Just as Nurse Jillian started to reply, Aaron took a deep breath, flicked up the head of his sweatshirt, and before he lost his nerve, knocked the potted plant to the ground and took off running in the opposite direction JJ had taken off in.

Behind him, Mark shouted, “That’s him! That’s him!”

Nurse Jillian shouted “I just planted that one!” Two pairs of footsteps took off down the hall after him one slightly behind the other as Jillian disentangled herself from her chair and raced after them both.

After a few seconds Aaron reached the end of the hall and immediately upon turning the corner he swung into a closet and tucked himself out of sight of Mark as he ran past. Mark paused and looked first to the left, then the right, swearing under his breath as he realized he hadn’t seen where “Jason” had gone. After Mark turned left, Aaron he took off his hood and stepped calmly back into the hall, just as Nurse Jillian screeched to a halt only a few feet away.

“Which way did he go?” Jillian asked breathlessly.

“Who?”

“Mark! Mark was chasing someone named Jason, wearing a hood, did you see where they went?”

“Jason? The short blond guy? What did he do wrong?” Aaron asked innocently.

“I don’t know!” Jillian exclaimed. “Stole a key or something… and he knocked over my plant. Which way did they go?’

“That way,” said Aaron, pointing to the right, and Nurse Jillian immediately took off without another word. Aaron couldn’t keep a laugh from escaping.

As he hurried back down the hall, he looked at the time on his phone: 1:09. If Mark had already made it upstairs, Ms. Moore could quite possibly already be here. On the other hand, she could still be downstairs trying to get a millipede off of herself. He smiled grimly at the thought.

He reached the main room again and stopped. Rossi was staring at him, a knowing look on his face. For a few moments, Aaron and Rossi stared at each other, Aaron not knowing what to do next, Rossi looking calm like he had all the time in the world.

Aaron cleared his throat. “...Um…” he said sheepishly. “I don’t suppose you wouldn’t mind turning around for about five minutes?”

“Why?” said Rossi with a raised eyebrow.

“Because… just please?”

Rossi just looked at him for what felt like forever. Aaron didn’t know what else to do if he said know, and the buzzing in his pocket told him that JJ was ready to go, plus Ms. Moore, Mark, and Jillian could show up at any moment and Aaron’s distraction would have been for nothing. The nurses certainly wouldn’t stand for letting them steal a car and kidnap a patient with them.

But then Rossi just gave a small shrug, quirked an eyebrow, and deliberately turned his back. “You have five minutes,” he said in surrender. “Until then, I didn’t see or hear anything.”

Aaron didn’t even have time to say thank you before he heard running feet. He recognized Mark’s voice and without another thought, he took off.

 

 

* * *

 

 

When he reached a landing a couple of floors down, he stopped and caught his breath. He was pretty sure all this running wasn’t good for his heart, but, well, fuck it. Aaron pulled out his phone and opened the group text between the three of them.

 **Aaron:** _JJ, you have less than five minutes to get him out._

 **Aaron:** _Emily do you have the car?_

 **Emily:** _You realize the parking garage has eight levels right_

 **JJ:** _Extraction in progress eta three minutes_

 **Emily:** _Hotchner get down here and help me look!_

Aaron put his phone in his pocket and began jogging down the stairs again, this time not full-out sprinting, and inwardly he was amused by how quickly the hospital had changed him—and not in a way he would have expected. Who expected to one day find themselves stealing a car and virtually kidnapping a hospital patient? Not Aaron Hotchner, that was for damn sure. Hell, he had wanted to be a lawyer when he grew up.

That reminder made him laugh. Apparently, following the rules was no longer his forte. He was okay with that.

Sometimes rules needed to be broken.

Like now.

Aaron took the stairs to the ground floor and found the attaching parking garage door, pushing through as he sent Emily another next: _Where are you?_

 **Emily:** _Fourth level._

 **Emily:** _Wait start at the top and work your way down_

 **Aaron:** . _..You realize I don’t even know what the car looks like, right_

 **Emily:** _…_

 **Emily** : _Shit_

 **JJ:** _En route! Hurry up Mark’s right behind us looking suspicious_

Aaron quickly found his way up to the fourth level of the parking garage and was just about to call Emily’s name when he heard a car start and Emily’s echoing voice shout “ _Yes!”_  

Aaron called her name, following the direction of her voice. He found her within a few seconds, in the driver’s seat of a bright blue Mustang convertible. She met his gaze in the rearview mirror, grinning crazily.

“Get in!” she shouted. So he climbed into the backseat and closed the door.

As Emily pulled out of the parking spot and started driving towards the entrance, she yelled over the rush of the wind to Aaron: “Text JJ and tell her to meet us at the south side entrance!”

 **Aaron:** _Meet us at the south side entrance_

_↳ Read 1:21_

“They’re coming,” said Aaron, then shrugged and added, “Hopefully.”

“Good enough,” Emily laughed. Aaron gripped the seat slightly harder as Emily flew around the corners without slowing down, centrifugal force throwing him to the side. His knuckles turned white.

“Ah... ah… ah…”  Aaron gasped nervously. “Can’t you drive a little slower?”

Emily just laughed again and turned even harder on the next corner, and sunlight came into view. She pulled to a smooth stop at the gate and pulled the parking card from the car console before handing it to the booth operator with a charming smile. Aaron leaned forward and perched between the two front seats.

“Hey there!” she said cheerfully. The operator gave a half-hearted greeting before scanning Strauss’ card and handing it back, waving her through as he lifted the gate. Emily smirked at Aaron in the mirror as she pulled out of the parking lot.

“I feel like I should do this professionally,” she joked.

“As if you could have done any of this without my help,” Aaron answered with a raised eyebrow. Emily shoved him back into the seat.

They were approaching the entrance when JJ sent a hurried text.

 **JJ:** _Mark is right behind me!_

“Get ready to go as soon as JJ and Spencer are in the car,” Aaron warned Emily. “Mark is right behind them.”

Emily pulled up to the entrance and let the call idle, leaning across the passenger seat to watch the door. She said with determination, “Bring it.”

They had only a few moments to wait before there was a flurry of activity. JJ burst through the glass doors, pulling a thin boy wearing sunglasses after her who looked like he was barely able to keep his feet under him. Barely a few seconds behind them was Mark, and before he could see Aaron, Aaron ducked his head. He didn’t want Mark to see him.

JJ threw the back door open and suddenly Spencer was crashing into him, limbs tangling, elbows connecting with ribs. Aaron grunted more with surprise than pain as the thin teen landed on top of him, his sunglasses skewing on nose, his purple beanie nearly falling off his head. They froze, faces barely two inches from each other, and for a second Aaron swore he saw stars.

Only not the bad kind.

Then JJ jumped into the passenger seat and shouted “Emily, go!”

Mark screamed “You get out of that car right now!”

“Nope!” Emily yelled back with a devious grin. She gunned the engine and then the car raced off, tires screeching, the girls laughing wildly. JJ even waved at him. Mark tried chasing after them, shouting for them to stop, but he could hardly keep up. Meanwhile the sudden inertia threw both of the boys into motion again, Spencer slipping off the seat and onto the floor while a sharp turn had Aaron thrown against the window. Spencer laughed, barely heard against the roar of the wind.

Then the car straightened out and Aaron regained his bearings. JJ glanced back with a grin and shouted over the whipping air “You alright back there?”

Aaron blinked, then leaned over to lend a hand to Spencer. “I’m fine,” he said, waiting for Spencer to take his hand, but Spencer ignored it and reached up to pull himself back onto the seat. He readjusted his sunglasses and his hat and nodded to JJ with a broad smile. “I’m great!” the boy exclaimed cheerfully.

“Great!” JJ said.

Then Spencer turned to look at Aaron, and his head cocked to the side with curiosity. “Who’re you?” he asked.

“My name is Aaron Hotchner,” he answered, sticking out his hand, this time for a handshake.

Spencer ignored it still and grinned. “Nice to meet you, Aaron,” he said. “I’m Spencer Reid.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter in probably three days. I have some stuff written but at the rate I'm going I'll run out of chapters and you guys will have a long wait between them so I'm just trying to stay a few steps ahead :)


	5. Arc 1 Final Part

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron chuckled. “This place is not going to be boring at all.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of nervous for this chapter but I hope you like it. Unfortunately, I'm going away for a few days so I won't be able to post or reply to comments (however don't let this discourage you; I will read them all as soon as I'm back) BUT I'm not leaving you with a big cliffhanger or anything so hopefully the wait won't be too bad. Lastly, I just want to reiterate all those comments seriously made like my entire week! Thank you so much :)

“I have to admit,” Spencer said, pulling himself up between the two front seats, “this really isn’t what I had expected when you said you and Emily had a surprise.”

JJ patted his cheek. “What, you hadn’t expected us to have stolen a car for you?” she said sweetly. “C’mon, Spencer, you know us by now.”

“I have a feeling I don’t want to,” Aaron joked with a deadpan expression. Spencer smiled.

“So,” Spencer said, dropping back into his seat, “how did these two get you stuck in their scheme? I mean, you’re new aren’t you? You must’ve arrived only today.”

Aaron had to strain his ears to hear Spencer’s voice over the wind. Emily was driving the car down the highway at top legal speed, the air whipping her hair all over the place, and Spencer dangled his bald head out the side of the car, looking blissful. He held the hat in his hand, along with a matching purple scarf that whipped in the wind.

“Yeah,” Aaron eventually answered, loudly so as to be heard. “I’m new. Emily guilted me into it.”

Spencer laughed as his words, waving his arms lazily and leaning so far out of the car Aaron was beginning to worry. “I’m sure she did,” Spencer shouted back with amusement. “Feeding you sob stories about poor little blind cancer patients. Everyone eats it right up.”

Shock was the first emotion. Blind? The cancer didn’t surprise Aaron; he had guessed it when he first saw the hat covering the hairless head. But the blindness surprised Aaron the most. He hadn’t realized…

Spencer laughed again. “Oh, they didn’t tell you?”

That would explain why he hadn’t taken Aaron’s hand. And the sunglasses.

“No,” Aaron said uncertainly. “Just that you were a friend.”

“Hm,” Spencer said, turning to Aaron as if he was actually looking at him. His lips curled up slightly in a wry smile, and he seemed almost… shy.

They had been driving for a little less than ten minutes. The scenery blurred as it whipped past, lulling Aaron into a calm daze as his heartbeat slowed back to its normal rate, and he wondered exactly what was going to happen when they got back. His mother would be displeased, no doubt, but when he glanced at Spencer, smiling happily, he couldn’t bring himself to regret what he’d done. They were going to return the car, anyway. Was it really stealing?

Then Emily turned on the radio and turned the volume up so loud Aaron could feel the sound waves pounding in the air. JJ let out a whoop and threw her hands in the air, and Aaron found himself smiling again, then laughing when JJ started singing along. It wasn’t a song he recognized, but it was loud and upbeat.

“Put your seatbelt on!” Emily exclaimed when Spencer stood up slightly in his seat to tap JJ’s shoulder. Spencer just smiled and laughed at her concern.

Aaron could see what they meant by cheering Spencer up. He’d never seen anyone look so happy. Spencer’s entire face lit up as he leaned out the open window, letting the wind wash over his skin, his expression serene. Aaron couldn’t imagine what he was going through. He had never met anyone with cancer before, and he didn’t really know what to say or how to act.

They drove for a while down the highway, wind whipping, music pounding, and spirits were high. Every now and then a song might come on and the girls would turn to volume up even higher as they sang along in belting, out of tune voices, and Spencer would clap and laugh when the song was done. There was a general feeling of camaraderie between them all; Aaron supposed the other three had known each other for a while. He admired the girls’ loyalty to Spencer, and their fierce protectiveness, though the young teen was definitely the type to inspire protectiveness; he was thin and bony and even frail-looking, his skin pale, his clothes seeming to swallow him whole. Aaron knew it was a combination of his illness and the treatment eating away at him, but he could also tell there was so much more to his story than his diagnosis.

A few hours later, JJ and Emily stopped singing to the radio at the sound of police sirens. Emily uttered a quick curse under her breath when she realized the cop was after her.

“Nice,” JJ said. “You were doing almost ninety in a sixty five zone.”

“Oops,” said Emily as she gently pulled the car over. “I hadn’t realized.”

Spencer snickered quietly, but next to him, Aaron quietly freaked out. He hadn’t ever counted on getting arrested. For God’s sakes, this could go on his record!

“Relax, Hotchner,” Emily said then, eyeing him in the rearview mirror as the officer approached the car. “The more nervous you get, the more guilty you look. It’s not like we’re getting arrested.”

The officer knocked on the window then, cutting off anything Aaron would have said, and Emily rolled down the window obligingly. She put on her most winning smile. “Hello, officer!” she chirped. “How can I help you?”

The officer leaned down and glanced at each of the occupants before looking back at Emily. One eyebrow was raised. “I’m going to need to see license and registration. Do you know how fast you were going?”

Emily pursed her lips and pretended to think about it. “I… I believe I was going eighty five?” she answered, feigning uncertainty. Spencer hid a smile by turning to face the window.

“I clocked you at going eighty nine,” said the officer sternly. The man couldn’t have been older than twenty five, with blond hair and squinty green eyes, but he looked as if he was having trouble taking Emily seriously. “This is a sixty five mile an hour zone, did you know that?”

“Well…” Emily shifted slightly in her seat, leaning the upper half of her body slightly out the window. “I’m so sorry, I was just excited. My friends and I are late for a pool party at my friend’s house. You know how it is.”

The officer blinked and swallowed, his eyes darting slightly lower than Emily’s face for just a second. JJ bit her lip to keep from laughing while Aaron’s eyebrows rose to his hairline.

As Emily dug around for her license, and the officer dug around for something to say, Spencer spoke up. “Emily,” he whined, “I still feel carsick. You said we weren’t going to have to go far! You know what long term vehicular motion stimuli does to my semicircular canals.”

“Sorry, Spence,” Emily said, pretending to seem frazzled. She and Spencer reminded Aaron of actors on a stage, but the mocking, amused undertone seemed to go over the officer’s head. He was looking at Spencer with a frown, who looked back coolly.

“The… car’s not even moving anymore…” said the officer tentatively. Spencer sat up straighter and he opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but JJ poked him quickly and gave him a pointed look. Spencer closed his mouth and slouched back in his seat and donned the hostile teenager persona once again, crossing his arms over his chest and remarking sardonically “Gee, really? It sure feels like we’re moving.”

JJ bit her lip again and tried to pretend she wasn’t smirking.

Emily frantically pretended to search for registration papers while the officer just looked at Spencer like he was speaking Chinese. After a few moments Emily said breathlessly “Uh, officer? I can’t seem to… ah… find the…”

She gave him a wide-eyed, helpless look. A classic damsel in distress expression.

Spencer said, “I think I’m going to throw up.”

“Ah, Emily, if we don’t get to the party soon, Will’s going to freak out and you know how much he likes suing people where his son is concerned.”

JJ glanced pointedly at Aaron, who just gave her a look like she was crazy.

Emily leaned slightly further out the window conspiratorially and said to the officer, “Aaron’s father is a rising politician and we just barely got him out to come to this party because he’s, like, super protective because he doesn’t want Aaron to get into trouble because it’s bad publicity or whatever, you know how it is, politics, and he does this thing where he sues people a lot to take the heat off himself, you know?  So we really have to get to the party like as soon as possible because if we’re late who the hell knows who’s going to get sued, you know what I mean? Nasty stuff,” she added, seeing that the officer’s face had gone ashen. Aaron sat up a little straighter in his chair and put an expression on his face that he hoped screamed “I’m the spoiled son of a politician who sues people.”

Then Spencer groaned and leaned out the window, making exaggerated retching sounds.

“Okay, okay!” the officer exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I’ll let you off with a warning this time. Just don’t do it again, okay?”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Emily gushed, all but batting her eyelashes at him. “I won’t do it again, I promise, officer, I won’t. Thank you so so _so_ much.”

The officer’s jaw went slightly slack for just a moment before he snapped it shut and pressed his mouth into a firm line. He nodded once before abruptly turning back to his car without another word.

The four teens waited in bated breath, trying not to burst into laughter that would certainly give them away. When the squad car finally took off the down the road, the sudden, explosive laughter was so abrupt the car shook slightly. Spencer was laughing so hard he could barely pull himself back into the car, and Aaron had to pull him by his belt loops.

“I can’t breathe,” JJ gasped, holding her chest.

“You shoved your boobs in his face!” Aaron exclaimed breathlessly. “You shoved your _chest_ into a police officer’s face to get out of trouble!”

This served only to ignite another round of laughter. Aaron pretended to frown, though his lips kept twitching upward. “You can’t do that!” he protested. “That’s not fair! If you had been a guy we’d’ve been arrested.”

Spencer giggled. “Now I kind of really need to throw up.”

“Oh, grow up, Hotchner,” Emily laughed. “I saved our asses!”

“I’m just surprised they haven’t put out an ATL on Strauss’ vehicle,” Spencer commented, still grinning. “I felt certain they were going to take us in.”

“My mom wouldn’t let that happen,” Emily said. She put the car in gear in slowly pulled out onto the highway again, chuckling. “We get into trouble like this all the time. Basically, I think most of the staff have become desensitized to it.”

JJ laughed. “Another one to tell the grandkids, guys.”

“So how did you get Strauss’ key, anyway?” Spencer asked, shouting to be heard over the wind.

JJ looked back at Aaron with a smirk. “Aaron is an… _excellent_ distractor.”  

Emily snickered. “ _Excellent_.”

Spencer looked at him—no, didn’t look, Aaron reminded himself. With the sunglasses, it seemed like he was looking.

Spencer raised his eyebrows expectantly.

“I—” Aaron found himself explaining with an embarrassed wince, “I stole the key from the valet.”

“He flicked an insect into someone’s car and screamed!” JJ chimed in with amusement.

“I didn’t scream!” Aaron argued. “I just… shouted in surprise.” When the others just chuckled, he defended, “Well, millipedes have… pores… that emit chemicals that… burn.”

“Only some millipedes,” Spencer corrected, “and even then, the chemicals produced, which can be alkaloids, benzoquinones, phenols, terpenoids, and/or hydrogen cyanide, can burn through the exoskeleton of other insect predators such as ants, but burn only the eyes and skin of larger predators. On a human, you’d likely only find a yellowish coloration to your skin and feel mild irritation if you have sensitive skin. Actually, did you know that some marsupials deliberately use the millipedes’ excretions as mosquito repellent? Pretty cool, right?”

Spencer nodded sagely, satisfied that he had shared all the interesting information he had. Aaron stared at him silently.

“Spence is a genius,” JJ explained with a smile.

“I don’t believe intelligence can be accurately quantified,” Spencer quipped. “What time is it?”

“Uh… almost four.”

“We’ve been driving around aimlessly for two and a half hours?” Aaron said with a raised eyebrow.

“Maybe we should head back,” Spencer said in agreement with Aaron. “You know how Derek gets when we leave him behind, not to mention Rossi’s probably going to kill us.”

JJ chuckled. Emily pretended to groan. “Aw, c’mon, mini-man. What a bore.”

“You sound like Penelope,” Spencer grumbled.

“Do we have a return strategy?” Aaron asked.

Emily glanced at him in the rearview mirror, her eyes lit with amusement. “Yeah,” she said. “We return.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

And they got yelled at.

A lot.

They returned the car to the exact same spot it was in before and casually snuck in one of the staff entrances just in time for dinner, just grabbing their dinners and sitting down at their usual table like nothing had happened. Aaron figured that was what really set them off—the fact that they didn’t even act guilty. Adults didn’t like that sort of snubbing.

His mother was called, and the nurses and head of security let her scold him first before they took their turn. Emily, JJ, and Aaron were made to apologize to Dr. Strauss, while Spencer got very little disciplinary action—though not for lack of trying. He loyally stayed by their sides and insisted that he had been as much a part of it as the rest of them.

Ms. Moore and Spencer had a heated discussion while the other three faced an angry head nurse, but even after an hour of scolding, none of them regretted what they’d done. All Aaron could see was the contentment on Spencer’s face as they drove, hanging out of the car window.

How could he regret that?

Over an hour later, the four teens were released and sent to their rooms. The girls bid Aaron and Spencer goodnight before heading off to their respective rooms, exchanging secretive, sneaky smiles. It felt good to be a part of something, and Aaron felt like this was the start of something different. And not necessarily in a bad way.

He glanced over at Spencer, walking beside him in a friendly silence. The only sound was the slight clicking of Spencer’s cane as he flicked it back and forth on the tile floor, each click even and perfectly timed, like a metronome.

“So…” Spencer said eventually, “you’re my new roommate.”

“Apparently.”

Spencer smiled slightly. “I suppose I should let you know what you’re getting into.”

Aaron just chuckled and gave Spencer another sideways glance. “You suppose?”

“I do. First of all, now that you’re involved in JJ and Emily’s crimes, you will never be able to escape. It’s a black hole of rule breaking, and they are not people you want to double cross. Secondly, when I can’t sleep, which is often, I either watch TV or play piano, but I won’t wake you up. Since my vision went, my other senses are amplified, so I’ll be able to hear everything just fine at a low enough volume that you won’t even be able to hear it. Thirdly, I’d like to point out that since I can’t see, I’d appreciate it if you told me when I was about to run into something. Also, I hope you don’t mind rodents. I have a pet rat.”

“A pet rat?” Aaron repeated. “Is that allowed?”

“No,” Spencer admitted. “Anyway, I just want to make sure there are no surprises… how squeamish would you be if I wore shorts?”

Aaron laughed. “Spencer, I’m a guy. I don’t care if people wear shorts. Why would I care if you do?”

Spencer didn’t answer for several seconds, blinking. “Be that as it may,” he said, suddenly looking uncertain, “most people haven’t had a limb salvage operation and had a metal implant replacing the bone. I know you can’t really see it but the scar… and some people say my leg looks weird…”

“Limb salvage...?” Aaron said, his gaze immediately dropping to Spencer’s legs, but Spencer was wearing khakis. He hadn’t noticed anything amiss, but the more he walked, the more Aaron realized Spencer walked with the tiniest limp. He just tried desperately to hide it.

After a pause, Spencer said gently, “They really didn’t tell you anything, did they?”

“Just that you were a friend,” Aaron said softly, echoing what he had said hours before.

“Hm.”

And that was that.

They arrived at the room and Aaron opened the door, following Spencer inside. Each teen headed to their respective side of the room and began getting ready for bed, pulling out pajamas and brushing teeth. As Aaron pulled on his pajama pants, he called out to Spencer, who was brushing his teeth in the attached bathroom: “I have to say, I don’t think my stay here is going to be at all what I expected.”

Spencer spit his toothpaste into the sink and rinsed the brush. “How’s that?”

Aaron chuckled. “This place is not going to be boring _at all._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thus ending Arc 1


	6. Rats, Socks, Cards, and Golf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says in the title.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! Sorry that took so long. I feel this chapter is mostly a filler but I decided to pitch it your way anyway. Thanks for your lovely support and hopefully I'll be posting the next chapter soon. (P.S. Verity_Reigns I believe the chapters you're fishing for are chapters seven and eleven... ;) )

“Up up up up!”

Aaron jerked awake to contact with the cold, hard floor. Funny how sometimes that was all waking up took. He gasped with surprise. “Hey!”

He opened his eyes when he heard muffled snickering. _I turned_ off _my alarm clock,_ he thought tiredly. As if the perpetrator had heard Aaron’s thoughts, he said smugly, “There’s no sleeping late in the army, soldier. Roll call’s at 0900 hours.”

“Spen- _cer_ ,” Aaron whined, squinting and rolling reluctantly onto his back. Spencer was leaning over him, luckily blocking most of the light from hitting Aaron’s face, grinning impishly as he leaned on his cane.

“Come on, Aaron, get your lazy butt off the floor!” he said brightly. “I wasn’t kidding when I said you have to get up. We have class in half an hour, and we haven’t even eaten breakfast yet.”

Aaron groaned and rolled back over onto the floor. “Go away.”

“Nope!” Spencer chirped happily. He nudged Aaron’s ribs none-too-gently with his cane. “Get up! Time for breakfast! With luck there may be some fried sardines left over for us.”

Aaron rolled back to look at him, still squinting. “Fried sardines?” he asked warily.

“Well, supposedly,” Spencer said. He scratched his head. “Did you ever see that video where someone microwaved his Nokia? Well, if I can remember correctly, which I can because of my eidetic memory, that’s what they look like.”

Aaron blinked, disbelieving. He sat up and rubbed his temple as he said, “You’re kidding.”

“Like dog turds,” Spencer said gravely. “And they smell about the same.” He leaned back slightly on his heels, allowing the light to assault Aaron’s face and causing him to squint again, and appeared to be thinking. “Actually, more like dog diarrhea, but the other stuff they serve is worse.”

Aaron rubbed his eyes. “That’s disgusting.”

“Actually, sardines have 338% of your daily required dose of vitamin B12, and are a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D and, because they are small fish at the bottom of the food chain, they are not as likely to contain concentrated amounts of contaminants such as mercury and PCBs,” Spencer babbled excitedly. “Sardines were named after the Italian island region Sardegna. Did you know it was actually Napoleon who initiated the popularity of sardines? They were the first fish to—”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

Spencer tipped his head thoughtfully. “About Napoleon? No, that’s true. Also about the vitamin B12, omega-3 fatty acids, and—well… I supposed they would be considerably less healthy what with the frying and all—”

“I meant about having fried sardines for breakfast.” Aaron was slowly getting to his feet, glancing longingly at his bed, while Spencer walked towards his dresser, answering as he fumbled with the drawer handles.

“Oh, I don’t know what they’re serving today. With luck, they’ll at least have canned carrot juice to wash it down.”

Aaron looked at Spencer, but he honestly couldn’t tell if he was kidding.

Spencer turned and if he hadn’t been wearing his sunglasses, Aaron would’ve thought Spencer was actually looking at him.

“Do these match?” he asked, holding up two socks.

“Yes,” Aaron answered with a glance, shuffling towards his own dresser.

“Oh.” Spencer let one of the socks drop to the floor and proceeded to search for another one. Aaron frowned.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for another sock,” said Spencer, looking at Aaron like he was crazy. “Matched socks are bad luck.”

Aaron didn’t say anything, just raised an eyebrow and started picking out a pair of jeans and a T-shirt to wear. This morning was one of the first times he had ever woken up somewhere that wasn’t his house or a friends’, but with Spencer there practically bouncing off the walls, it was almost hard to believe he wasn’t just having a sleepover. In fact, Aaron wasn’t even really nervous for his first full day at the hospital; he had already made friends, and he liked them a lot. Spencer, especially, made Aaron smile, with his energy and goofy smiles and excited rambles and awkwardness. He was certainly quirky, but he was always cheerful, and Aaron had to admit he admired that. He didn’t know exactly what Spencer’s condition was, but Aaron knew it wasn’t good, and yet he still managed to smile.

“Stop thinking so hard,” Spencer said, his voice slightly muffled as he pulled a sweater on over his head. “You’re giving me a migraine.”

The dividing curtain was pulled only halfway, though Spencer seemed not to have realized that from Aaron’s vantage point, he could be seen. Aaron spotted a flash of pale skin and glanced away.

“I wasn’t thinking that hard.”

“You were. I could—Algernon, no!”

Aaron looked up to see the rat scampering across the floor before disappearing under his bed. Spencer started turning around trying to figure out where it had gone, a sock still in hand.

“Did you see where he went?” Spencer asked him, frowning.

“Under my bed,” Aaron answered as he pulled on a pair of blue jeans. “Stop spinning, you’ll make yourself dizzy.”

“I’m not spinning, my brain is spinning.”

“Not funny.”

“Can you get Algernon, please?”

“You want me to touch the rat?”

“Excuse me?”

“What if it bites me?”

“ _He_ doesn’t bite people.”

“... If you say so.”

“I do.”

“Fine… OW! You said he doesn’t bite!”

“Well, unprovoked, I meant.”

“I didn’t provoke him!”

“If he bit you, you must have.”

“I didn’t even touch him!”

“Provocation can be verbal as well as physical.”

“ _I didn’t even_ —Ugh. I got it.”

“Are you bleeding?”

“No.”

“Then he didn’t bite you.”

“But he did!”

“No, he nipped you. There’s a difference.”

“Just hold out your hand.”

Spencer held out his hand, palm down. The rat scampered from Aaron’s hand to Spencer’s, up his arm, before disappearing behind his neck.

“Poor Algernon. I think you’ve traumatized him.”

Aaron mock-frowned at Spencer’s teasing tone. “I’m frowning at you.”

“Big, scary human intimidated the defenseless little rat,” Spencer continued to tease.

“I will call hospital security on that thing.”

“You wouldn’t!”

The continued to bicker out the hall, Aaron following slightly behind Spencer. In the cafeteria, after picking up their breakfasts, they sat down with Emily and JJ, who were bemoaning the ungodly hour as the two boys approached.

“You know, I was really hoping you were kidding about the sardines thing,” Aaron said as he sat down, changing the subject.

“I wasn’t!” Spencer protested as he tore the paper top off of his cereal container. “Look it up!”

Emily looked up from pouring syrup packages on her waffles. “‘Sardine thing’?” she repeated.

Spencer made a face. “I was telling Aaron about how sardines are rich in Omega-2 fatty acids and—”

“No, not that sardine thing!” Aaron interrupted. “I meant I was hoping they didn’t serve sardines at all.”

JJ and Emily looked at Spencer. “They don’t,” said JJ.

Emily added “At least, not for breakfast. That is clearly—” She reached over the table with her fork and speared on of the mysterious logs on Aaron’s plate that looked like fried sardines before taking a bite from it and chewing thoughtfully. “—sausage,” she concluded. “It’s sausage. Relatively flavorless, but the flavor that you can taste is pretty repulsive.”

Aaron looked down at his remaining sausages and made a face. “Great,” he muttered good-naturedly. The girls laughed.

“That’s why you only stick to packaged foods,” Spencer advised wisely, gesturing in the general direction of his cereal. He found the edge of the bowl with his hand, then used it as a guide to pour his milk before adding, “At least when they’re wrapped, the cafeteria staff can’t mess them up.”

“I must say I agree,” said Emily, pushing away her waffle after only a few bites. She crossed her arms. “These taste like cardboard!”

JJ raised her eyebrows. “You’ve been here how long and you’ve only just noticed that?”

“I don’t usually get waffles. I prefer the toast; that way I can put enough jam on it to pretend it isn’t burnt.”

Spencer, sitting next to Emily, playfully nudged her with his elbow. “You know, you can put jam on waffles, too.”

Emily slapped her forehead and groaned. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The four of them laughed and continued to eat their breakfasts, Emily and Aaron only picking at theirs, JJ and Spencer having sensibly chosen prepackaged foods. The cafeteria bustled with activity around them while the group of friends chatted easily, as if they had known each other forever. A few minutes later, Emily bid them all farewell and headed out to school, while the other three threw out their trash and headed to class. JJ and Spencer led Aaron down the halls.

Aaron didn’t really know how the whole school thing worked. He’d been surprised to hear they even had their own classes at the hospital; it hadn’t really been something he’s considered, but he was glad that he wouldn’t fall behind on his classwork. If all went well, he would graduate next year.

He followed the other two into a large room filled with tables angled towards a whiteboard. There were only a few other occupants, including a girl in a wheelchair, another girl wearing a beret, and a boy fiddling with his phone. The last occupant, whom Aaron assumed was the teacher, glanced up when they entered the room, smiling.

“Ah, the three musketeers,” said the woman warmly. “I see Emily has been replaced.”

“Nah, we’ve just taken on one more,” JJ said with a grin. She reached back and grabbed Aaron’s arm, pulling him in front of her. “This is Aaron Hotchner,” she introduced. “Hotch, this is our teacher, Alex Blake.”

“You can just call me Blake,” said the woman, who held out her hand for Aaron to shake. He shook it firmly.

“I heard about the stunt you pulled yesterday,” Blake said to them, one eyebrow raised. She stepped back slightly to let them take their seats at a table in the back of the room, near the windows.

JJ grinned as she sat down. “What can we say? That car needed some love.”

“I also heard that Dr. Strauss ran out of gas halfway to her home last night.”

“Oops,” Spencer muttered. JJ just laughed.

Blake sighed. “Ay, me!” she said, shaking her head and looking at Aaron. “I hope you’ve realized what you’ve gotten yourself into.”

“I hope so, too,” Aaron answered with a wry expression. Blake smiled and walked back to her desk. Aaron turned to JJ. “‘Hotch’?” he repeated. “Where did that come from?”

“How many people do you know have nicknames for their last names?” JJ answered. “I mean, there aren’t any nicknames for Aaron, but for Hotchner… that was just too good to pass up.”

“But it sounds like you’re calling me Crotch!” he protested.

“No it doesn’t,” Spencer said. “The hard ‘cr’ sound can in no way be mistaken for the soft ‘h’ sound unless the speaker drops the opening consonant entirely. I mean, speaking phonetically—pun intended—the sounds are almost the exact opposite of each other.”

More kids filed into the room for class before Blake clapped her hands and the room fell silent. “Today,” she said, “we are going to be continuing our discussions of the French Revolution, only today we’re going to focus on the Reign of Terror, specifically Robespierre, and how the invention of the guillotine influenced this phase of history.”

Spencer nudged JJ with his elbow and raised his eyebrows as Blake began her lecture. Aaron already knew everything they were talking about, having covered it in global history as a freshman and in European history as a sophomore, and was slightly disappointed to discover these classes were likely to bore him to death, if nothing else. He was just resigning himself to his fate when JJ dropped a handful of cards in front of him.

He shot her a puzzled look, but she was already dealing cards for herself and Spencer, then put the deck on the table and spread them out randomly across the surface. Aaron glanced up at Blake, but she seemed not to notice, so he tentatively picked up his cards and looked them over. In the corners where the numbers had been placed, little raised dots decorated the surface. Aaron recognized it as braille.

He whispered to JJ “What are you doing?”

“We’re playing Go Fish,” she answered back, like Aaron was an idiot for asking.

“During _class?_ ”  he said, agast.

“How old are you, twelve?” she replied. “Dunno about you, but Spencer and I learned this stuff in freshman year. Do you really want to learn it again?”

Aaron just raised his eyebrows and sighed. He should stop being surprised. “Alright,” he said. “Who’s going first?”

By the end of class, Spencer had soundly beaten them, winning twelve of the fourteen games of Go Fish, three of the three games of Blackjack, and both games of Crazy Eights. Blake hadn’t even called on them once; she seemed either oblivious (which Aaron doubted) or she was simply ignoring them (highly more likely). But just because he hadn’t been paying attention, didn’t mean he hadn’t learned anything. On the contrary, he learned very important tidbits of information.

Spencer grew up in Las Vegas.

He has an eidetic memory.

Ergo, don’t play cards with him. You will lose.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“But Blackjack is almost completely luck!” Aaron exclaimed as he pushed his lunch tray down the line, picking out foods. From behind him, JJ said “Oh, just drop it, Hotch,” with the air of someone who’s been down this road before and got nowhere with it. Aaron ignored her.

“Even with card counting skills, it wouldn’t account for you success in a game with very little skill involved!” Aaron persisted.

“Why are you so sore over this?” Spencer said with some amusement, picking up a jell-o cup slightly ahead of him in line. “We weren’t even gambling. You didn’t lose anything. No harm, no fowl.”

“I’m on the verge of accusing you of cheating if you don’t tell me how you did it.”

Spencer shook his head and, after grabbing a carton of juice, began heading towards their usual table with Aaron hot on his heels.

“Okay, first of all,” Spencer said when he had sat down, “the standard deviation in Blackjack is 1.17—”

“Seriously, guys drop it,” JJ said as she took her seat next to Spencer. “Aaron, it doesn’t matter how he won, because it will not change the fact that he will win again and again and again and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“I think that’s unfair,” Spencer protested. “I don’t win every game. I have control over only my cards, so it was entirely possible one of you could have won. My success depended 66.6% on your losing. Also, if we had played a fourth game, my odds of winning again would have been about 4.62%, with a net win at 42.42%—”

JJ patted his shoulder. “Okay, Spence, but I still think you’re almost always going to win. At least you don’t gloat about it.”

Spencer shrugged at that and carefully took a sip of his juice.

A little while later, Derek came and sat at their table and said hello. Penelope, too, stopped in for a few minutes to see them, before she got caught up in flirting with Derek. Rossi even visited briefly, though mostly just to come drag Derek away. By then, the table was in the middle of a heated debate as to who would win in a fight: Captain Kirk or Captain America, ignoring Spencer’s protestations that even though they both held the title of captain, the two were entirely incomparable—and besides, Captain Picard was clearly superior to Kirk. JJ argued that Captain America was a super soldier, meaning he was stronger than any normal man, while Penelope claimed Captain Kirk was the toughest, most kickass man in the galaxy. Which of course got Derek involved, with his hurt feelings, and he was still trying to argue that _he_ was the toughest man in the galaxy when Rossi took him away—but not before informing the teens that Iron Man was _obviously_ the toughest man in the universe. Which, in turn, got JJ and Penelope protesting that Iron Man didn’t count because all of his strength came from his suit and not himself.

The next class started at one o’clock. JJ got up first, throwing out her trash and exiting the cafeteria, and Spencer and Aaron followed. However, instead of walking in the direction of the classroom, she turned down a different direction so abruptly that Spencer was left continuing forward. Aaron actually had to pull him back.

“Wait, what?” Spencer said, trying to keep his balance as he turned to listen to JJ’s footsteps. “JJ?”

“JJ, where are you going?” Aaron asked in knowing exasperation. To break more rules, no doubt.

“I don’t want to go to back to class,” JJ said, turning to look at them and practically skipping down the hall backwards.

“I’m pretty sure that’s against the rules,” Aaron protested.

JJ cocked an eyebrow. “Okay,” she said. “If you want to go back to class, be my guest. But if you want to have some fun…”

Only a moment of thought preceded Aaron shaking his head good naturedly and guiding Spencer after her, grumbling under his breath.

They followed her down the halls, up staircases, and across floors until Aaron was slightly out of breath. God, the hospital was big. What was JJ looking for?

Nothing, as it turned out. She knew exactly what she where she was headed, and she stopped outside of it: a storage closet.

“Spence?” she said expectantly.

Spencer reached his hand out, searching for the doorknob, then pulled a paper clip out of his pocket and carefully unbent it. It took him only a few seconds to insert it into the keyhole, and then he leaned his cane against the wall and knelt, pressing his ear to the door right next to the knob. He flicked the clip around and jiggled the door handle. After a few second, the door unlocked with a click and swung open.

Spencer stood up and smiled with satisfaction. “Elle taught me that,” he said proudly.

JJ pushed the door open all the way and stepped inside, looking around. Spencer and Aaron waited outside, having no idea what she was looking for, until a few moments later JJ held up a crutch and a dustpan. “Nine holes or eighteen?” she asked with a sly smile.

  
  


JJ’s—and Spencer’s, who had apparently played “hospital golf” with her before—version of golf involved a crutch, an umbrella pilfered from the lost and found, and Spencer’s cane as clubs, plastic dustpans as holes (hidden all over the hospital; Spencer said if they knew where all the holes were it wouldn’t be as fun (and who knew the hospital had so many dustpans?)), elevators, human obstacles—including, but not limited to nurses, staff, and patients—and wheelchairs. It was almost as if the game had been specially designed to make the players look like idiots, trying to hit tiny balls with umbrellas, racing others down the hall in wheelchairs.

But, damn it, it was _fun._

Even when Aaron accidentally veered his chair into a vending machine. Spencer didn’t hesitate to pull out Aaron’s phone and take pictures.

They ended up playing eighteen holes. They twisted Rossi’s arm into hiding them during his break time, then raced off in their chairs, hitting plastic balls all over the hospital. Spencer even had a special ball that emitted a beeping sound for him to track audibly, and the dustpans were similarly markered with beeping devices.

For the game, two players were dispatched at a time, and it was a race to see who could complete the game the fastest and with fewer hits. Once they found one hole, they teed off from there to find the next one. The hard part was, in order to find the holes, you had to hit your ball around, but the more places you searched, the more times you hit the hall. Not only that, since one of the goals of the game was to do it as quickly as possible, players wasted no time trying to perfect their shot, instead frantically hitting the ball in any way possible in order to be as fast as possible… which, of course, resulted in more hits.

Yeah, there was no such thing as a hole in one.

JJ and Aaron played the first round, with Spencer as the referee. More than half the time, Aaron couldn’t even hit the ball with his umbrella, or it would roll into a awkward position and he would have to lean out of the chair to try to hit it—nearly unseating himself in the process, which in turn made JJ laugh so hard _she_ nearly unseated _herself_.

Aaron wasn’t extremely competitive by nature, but something about the challenge or the laughter really got him into the game. But the best part, without a doubt, was when Spencer laughed. It amazed Aaron how much he understood was going on, how he could just listen and comprehend what had happened even when he couldn’t see it. Of course, the muttered curse under Aaron’s breath when he missed the ball was pretty unmistakeable.

JJ won by a landslide. Aaron very nearly speared a man with his umbrella in one of the elevators, and was a hairsbreadth from tripping a surprised looking janitor, which it turned out was against the rules and Spencer had to add points to his score. In the end, JJ’s score was in the low one thousands; Aaron’s was in the seven thousands.

“But I’ve never played this game before!” he protested as they waited by the elevators to wheel back to the start of the course for the next round.

JJ just gave him an exasperated look and rolled her eyes. She was just about to reply when a voice behind them said, “Well, look who it is.”

The three teens turned in their chairs. Blake stood with her arms crossed, eyebrows raised, and for a moment Aaron actually shrank away from her gaze. To say he wasn’t used to the disapproval of his teachers would be an understatement.

Then Spencer said happily “Blake! Hi!” like they hadn’t skipped out on her class. “What did you teach this afternoon?”

Blake looked at him, and Aaron noticed she was trying desperately not to smile. “Linguistic profiling.”

Spencer’s face fell. “Aww…”

“She’s kidding, Spencer,” JJ said with an affection hair tousel. He attempted to swat her hand away with an adorable scowl.

Blake eyed the three of them with a wry expression. She gestured vaguely to their gear. “... Hospital golf, I presume?”

JJ and Spencer grinned and Aaron slowly let himself relax in his chair. He wondered if the hospital staff were just particularly lax of if they really had become desensitized to his new friends’ apparent ignorance of the rules. Although, he had to admit, he did enjoy watching them always manage to wriggle their way out of the repercussions.

“I’ve already learned the things you’re teaching in class,” he piped up, keeping his tone respectful.

One corner of Blake’s mouth quirked upward. “That’s why I’m not reporting it,” she said meaningfully, starting to turn away. She paused and turned back. “By the way, I heard from a rather irate nurse that you all also missed rounds today.”

Spencer opened his mouth, then closed it, looking sheepish. JJ bit back a smile, and the two of them said “Oops” in unison.

Then JJ added “Tell our patients we’re sorry but we’ll make extra sure to do our rounds tomorrow. And that we hope no one died due to our stupidity.”

“That would be unfortunate due to the fact we haven’t renewed our malpractice insurance since 1943,” Spencer said to JJ, who nodded to concede his point. “Know a good lawyer?” he asked Blake pleasantly.

Blake’s eyebrows shot upward. “You’re lucky I like you kids!” she remarked as she walked away.  Aaron watched her leave, then shook his head in amazement and looked back at JJ and Spencer, who had maneuvered their chairs to face the now opening elevator doors. He quickly hurried after them, and when the doors closed and the elevator began to lift, he commented “Do you guys ever get in trouble?”

JJ looked at Aaron like he was crazy. “Why would we get in trouble?” she asked. “We don’t do anything wrong.”

“I’ve seen you break more rules than I can even count within my first forty-eight hours of being here,” Aaron said incredulously.

“ _What?_ Us, ruler-breakers?” Spencer pretended to look offended.

“Honestly, Aaron, I’m offended you would think so little of us,” JJ gasped, feigning hurt.  

Aaron just looked back and forth between the two of them, who pretended to look innocent. At last, he just shook his head.

“You know, sarcasm isn’t the lowest form of wit,” he remarked eventually. “It isn’t wit at all.”

Spencer just laughed.

 

 


	7. A Heart to Heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Hey,” came a voice from the doorway. “I know the cafeteria food sucks, but it doesn’t suck bad enough to warrant blowing off altogether.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fifty kudos?! Holy crap guys thank you so much! I can't believe it!

Aaron sat in the couch next to the window and stared outside. The height didn’t make him nervous; in fact, he rather liked watching the traffic flow by far below him, like ants. He sort of wanted to listen to his iPod, but he sort of just liked leaning his forehead against the cool glass and not thinking for a while.

It was sometime past six o’clock and Aaron had finished his homework for the day. His high school teachers had coordinated his assignments through the classes at the hospital, so Aaron was able to attend with Spencer and JJ. School at the hospital was a flexible affair, due to the fact many of the students were too ill to work very hard for a long time, and the fact that throughout the day, many of them had appointments and tests to undergo, and occasional surgeries that pulled them out of class for several days at a time. Mostly, it involved about two classes a day, one at nine o’clock and one at two, each lasting about an hour. In between and for the rest of the day students either received assignments from their own high school teachers, or they completed work assigned by the hospital teachers. It was essentially a guided study hall.

Not that Spencer even needed to attend, having already graduated high school. His course load was college-level work, complicated math and science and stuff Aaron couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Spencer had tried to explain to him some of the work he was going one day and almost gave Aaron a headache.

“Hey,” came a voice from the doorway. “I know the cafeteria food sucks, but it doesn’t suck bad enough to warrant blowing off altogether.”

Aaron looked up to see Spencer leaning against the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest, a mildly amused look on his face. For a moment Aaron wondered how Spencer could always sneak up on people like that—he was always quiet as a mouse.

“Are you a ninja?” Aaron joked.

“That’s highly classified information,” Spencer answered, adjusting his gaze to follow the sound of Aaron’s voice. He wasn’t wearing his sunglasses, so to Aaron it seemed he was looking right at him. If Aaron had ever thought it would be easy to stare at Spencer without getting caught, he knew better now, but he couldn’t help himself: he stared. He watched the way the light from the setting sun lit Spencer’s delicate features, adding a tiny bit of rosiness to his cheeks. He was rail thin, for sure, but nearly as tall as Aaron, his posture slightly slumped, his bony shoulders curved slightly inward like he was constantly waiting for something to hit him. Nonetheless, his lips constantly turned upwards, his hands twitching with excitement, and these unintentional tells in his body language reminded Aaron that although the boy looked frail and ill, he had a wicked sharp mind and a bright sense of humor, his big brown eyes flashing with a sense of optimism and gratitude for life that many people in his situation didn’t have.

“You’re staring at me.”

“Really?” Aaron laughed. “I hadn’t realized.”

“I know I’m gorgeous, but I’m not that gorgeous,” Spencer answered with a grin.

“Modesty doesn’t suit you.”

Just as quickly as it had appeared, Aaron’s buoyant mood evaporated, and he turned back to looking out the window. He didn’t even have to say anything; Spencer was already cocking his head, listening carefully.

“Okay,” he said, walking swiftly into the room. He threw out a hand to make sure he was by the couch before dropping onto it, crossing his leg over his knee and shooting his gaze in Aaron’s direction as accurately as he could. “Come on, Aaron. What’s up?”

Aaron looked at him, surprised. “What do you mean? Nothing’s up.”

“Do not lie to me, Hotchner,” Spencer said with mock sternness. “I can see into your soul, and your soul is telling me something’s up. Not to mention the fact you’re skipping dinner. Big give away.”

Normally Aaron would have a witty response to that, and the two would banter back and forth for a while, but for some reason he just can’t bring himself to do that. Spencer didn’t seem to want him to, either. He takes his friends seriously, and his usual bright smile had faded into an expectant expression.

Aaron sighed microscopically.

“I heard that,” said Spencer.

Aaron sighed again, louder, and Spencer sighed back. “Okay, okay,” said Spencer. “Just tell me what’s wrong, because I know something’s bothering you.”

Neither of them said anything for a few minutes.

“Do you ever…” Aaron said after a moment, “...do you ever feel…?”

“...Like you’re never going to leave here?”

Aaron looked at him, but Spencer had fixed his sightless gaze on the wall, his hands tucked under his thighs. The younger boy gave a wry smile and remarked “Yes, I suppose so.”

“I’m sorry… I didn’t… I didn’t mean…”

“Hey, calm down,” Spencer laughed. “I wasn’t implying anything. All I meant was that I understand what you mean.”

Aaron cleared his throat slightly. His voice was filled with hesitance. “How long have you been staying here?”

“One year, two weeks, and six days.”

Aaron’s eyes widened. “Oh. Wow.”

“Well, that’s just this time. I’ve been in and out of the LV hospital, and this one, more than once.”

Aaron just looked at him.

“Are you staring at me again?” Spencer smiled.

“No, I just—well, yes but—I mean, that’s long time in a hospital.”

“Sort of. But it’s been this way for years, so I’m used to it. But _you_ don’t have cancer. Almost every child or teen who gets a heart transplant lives a normal healthy life. The statistics are overwhelming.”

When Aaron didn’t say anything, Spencer cocked his head to the side again. “I get the sense this hasn’t assuaged any of your fears.”

How could he tell Spencer that comparing his own shitty odds to Aaron’s was hardly a comfort? Because it wasn’t. Aaron felt worse. Worse that yes, he was still afraid of what was going to happen to him, worse that this blind cancer patient was trying to comfort him, even though compared to said cancer patient, he has a way better chance of not only surviving, but surviving with almost no side effects to life a full and unhindered life.

“Tell me your story,” said Aaron finally.

Spencer blinked. “You mean about my cancer?”

He nodded, then remembered Spencer couldn’t see him, so he said “Yes. Tell me about it. How old were you when you found out?”

There was a long pause. Spencer lips twisted downward in a tense frown, an expression Aaron rarely ever saw on his face. He was about to apologize and take it back—it was clear that Spencer didn’t want to talk about it—before Spencer exhaled slowly and rubbed the back of his neck before opening his mouth the speak.

“Oh…” he began thoughtfully, “I was nine. The doctor did some tests and scans, and eventually he diagnosed me with osteosarcoma. We started treatment immediately; chemo, radiation. It was… it was pretty terrifying to an nine year old. I hadn’t ever really thought about death, or anything like that. I was nine, you know? You don’t really think about how lucky you are until suddenly you’re told that you have cancer and there’s a chance you won’t survive. Of course, at that point, the odds of my surviving were pretty good, about sixty to eighty percent, but, gosh, I was just a kid. I was… I mean, I’d never even considered dying.”

Spencer shifted slightly in his seat and Aaron kept his gaze fixed on his friend’s face as he talked.

“The treatment lasted about seven months before the doctors did the limb-salvage operation. Basically, they cut out the bone with the tumor and replaced it with a… a metal rod. Like a prosthetic, really, except inside my leg.” Spencer rolled up his right pant leg to his knee before gesturing that Aaron could look at it, which he did with a degree of trepidation. A thin, pink scar ran nearly the length of Spencer’s calf, straight and narrow and impossible to miss. Aside from that, the leg looked nearly normal, aside from an unnatural and almost painful looking thinness.

“Could’ve been worse,” said Spencer with a ghost of a smile. “I could have instead gotten a rotationplasty.”

“I don’t know what that is,” Aaron admitted.

“Yeah, it doesn’t matter. It’s a type of amputation for people who had a tumor above the knee, but mine was below, so… it doesn’t matter.” He rolled his pant leg back down and let out an almost silent sigh. “I couldn’t even walk for a year after the surgery. Physical therapy was intense. It still is.

“After that, I pushed myself even harder in school. I entered high school, worked my butt off. Meanwhile at home, my parents’ marriage fell apart, and my dad left because he couldn’t handle the stress of having a son as strange as me, me with my eidetic memory and awkward social behavior and, oh, yeah, a chunk of leg missing.”

“Spence,” said Aaron, reaching out to gently touch his arm.

“Aaron, it’s fine. Really. My dad is a dick. Anyway, I started getting headaches when I was thirteen. Dizzy spells. I wanted to write it off as stress or something but I know I should get it looked at, with my medical history. But I only had a few weeks more until I graduated, so I didn’t tell, and I hoped it wasn’t anything serious. I hoped.

“But then, during the commencement ceremony, I had a full out seizure. Gave myself a serious concussion, and I would bet all the videos are still on YouTube.”  

Aaron didn’t know what to say, so he took Spencer’s hand and squeezed it gently. Spencer smiled a little.

“It was a brain tumor. But, unfortunately, my mother was sick as well. She couldn’t take care of herself after my dad left, so that fell to me, so the CPS got involved and took me out and put me in foster care. It happens a lot in families who don’t have the money to pay for treatment for their kids, and, anyway, at that point there would have been no chance that Mom could pay for another round of treatment. Even if I had had a full supportive, healthy family—with no money, it would’ve been inevitable.

“They moved me to DC because for their oncologists unit. One of the doctors, Dr. Nichols, is one of the best neurosurgeons in the country. I have hope. I’m optimistic. As long as it doesn’t spread anywhere else, I might be able to go home after the surgery.”

Aaron pretended he hadn’t heard the words _i_ _f_ and _might_.

“So, if you don’t mind me asking, how long have you been blind? How did it… how did it happen?”

Spencer gently retracted his hand from Aaron’s and rested his chin on his fist, still gazing into no particular direction. Aaron had forgotten he was holding it.

“I don’t mind. It’s been a little over two years; the tumor caused it. When I was moved here, I was more of an outpatient getting treatment, but when I went blind, they decided to just keep me here. The tumor’s kind of a tricky one, and the doctors are trying to slow its growth before they have to take it out because the surgery is kind of risky… it might not work. But if it does—if it does work, I’ll be able to go home.” Spencer’s voice turned hopeful.

Aaron was also going to ignore the word _risky_ and the phrase _it might not work,_ and for a moment he allowed himself to feel hopeful for his friend, ignoring a vague feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach. He wondered what his odds were, not that the cancer had metastasized. Did that mean it had a higher chance of mets’ing again?

“So they’ve been treating it for… more than two years?”

“It’s more complicated than that. Obviously, the original treatment they were giving me wasn’t working, otherwise I wouldn’t have gone blind… but they say this one’s working, just slowly. It shouldn’t be much longer.

“That’s enough about me,” Spencer said suddenly, smiling up at Aaron and patting his knee. “Tell me about you. What’s Aaron Hotchner’s story? Now that I’ve spilled my guts, it’s your turn. An eye for an eye.”

“There isn’t much to tell,” Aaron hedged, surprised.

That wasn’t necessarily true. The truth was, he didn’t want to talk about it. And he knew Spencer hadn’t wanted to talk about his, either, but he had divulged because Aaron asked.

But then Spencer said “I don’t care. Make stuff up. Tell me your grandmother’s dog’s name. About how your friend’s uncle’s cousin made it on America’s Funniest Home Videos. I don’t care. Just talk.”

So Aaron talked. First he talked about his family. He talked about how his father died of a heart attack a few years ago, and how he was kind of almost glad for it. He talked about how his brother Sean can’t even look him in the eye. Then he talked about how he misses going to a regular school and seeing his other friends. He talked about how he once had a cat named Peanut Butter who only drank water if he could stand in the bowl. He talked about one time when his friend Mark dared him to sled off the roof of his garage and he dislocated shoulder. He talked about anything.

Spencer listened intently, an odd smile lighting his face. He laughed with Aaron at the appropriate parts and just listened. Occasionally he responded in kind, recounting amusing anecdotes from his childhood, but mostly he just let Aaron talk, and Aaron had to admit to himself that it was kind of exciting to have the other boy’s attention so completely like that. Spencer never so much as missed a beat, offering his support in the easiest but most meaningful way, his focus never even wavering.

The sun had set by the time the two fell into a comfortable silence. Aaron stood up and turned on the lamps, while Spencer just followed the sound of his movements with his eyes. Aaron felt lighter than he had in days, maybe even weeks, and he realized that had been Spencer’s plan the whole time. To get him talking to relieve some of the stress of keeping it all coiled up inside, even if it was nothing.

Aaron paused. Then he clicked on the last lamp and said, “Thanks, Spencer.”

“For what?” Spencer smirked. “Forcing you to reveal all of your deepest, darkest secrets? It’s a gift, really.”

But from the tiny way Spencer shifted in his seat, Aaron could see he was uncomfortable with the gratitude. He made a mental note to work on that with him when suddenly Spencer stood up from the couch.

“Hey, wait, I have an idea. I’ll be right back,” he said in a rush, before he made his way to the door, fumbling for his cane, and left the room, the slight sound of the metal clicking from side to side as Spencer walked the only sound in the hallway until that faded away, leaving Aaron standing in the room with one eyebrow raised and more than slightly bewildered.

Spencer didn’t come back for more than ten minutes, and for a few minutes Aaron considered going to look for him. Then he turned around and Spencer was standing less than three feet away from him, midstep, a plastic bag in one hand.

“Ah!” Aaron exclaimed, jumping violently. He clutched his chest. “Stop doing that! Jesus!”

“What was Jesus doing?” Spencer said innocently, stopping.

“Sneaking up on me!” Aaron answered, but he couldn’t help but chuckle. “How do you do that?”

“Do what?” Spencer asked, his face still a mask of innocent confusion.

“Never mind,” Aaron laughed. “What's in the bag?”

A flash of mischievousness lit in Spencer’s eye and he made his way to his bed and sat down, then patted the spot next to him as he reached into his bag and pulled out two plastic cutlery packets.

“Where did you get those?” Aaron said as he approached. “The cafeteria closed over an hour ago.”

“Shhh,” Spencer said, before pulling out two pint sized ice cream containers. Aaron’s eyes lit up, and he laughed delightedly, the mattress dipping slightly as he sat down.  

“No way!” he exclaimed, laughing again as Spencer pulled out a half full bag of M&Ms and a container of whipped cream.

“I keep these in the back of the nurse’s freezer and write Nurse Kelly’s name on them,” Spencer whispered conspiratorially. “No one ever even touches them.”

He took the lid off of one container, mint chocolate chip flavored, then showed Aaron the other, which was chocolate marshmallow. “Which one?”

“Whichever one you don’t want.”

Spencer handed him the chocolate marshmallow, and Aaron smiled as he accepted it because it had been the one he secretly wanted, and he would’ve bet money that Spencer somehow knew that. As Aaron lathered a pile of whipped cream on top of his, Spencer switched on the TV and flicked through the channels until he found one of the Star Trek movies.

“I’ve seen this one a million times,” Spencer remarked as he leaned against his pillows and carefully poured the chocolate candies onto his ice cream, listening carefully to the dialogue.

“I bet you have,” Aaron said with a grin. Then, “Wait, is this even allowed?”

Calling it a “look” would’ve technically been inaccurate, but the expression on Spencer’s face was purely teenager disbelief. “You stole a _car_ on your first day here, and you’re worried if _ice cream_ is _allowed?”_

“Okay, okay,” Aaron laughed, shoving Spencer’s socked feet off of his lap. “Touché.”


	8. Visitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aaron gets a reluctant visitor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one is a little shorter than usual and slightly rushed but I didn't want to leave you hanging for too long. 
> 
> I also forgot to mention something I think should be obvious, but I want to make sure everyone knows. I have no medical knowledge whatsoever because I'm not a doctor, so all my research was done online and therefore is likely inaccurate in many ways. Sorry about that :)

Aaron waited excitedly by the elevators to the peds floor, hands in his pockets, though he remained his usual outward calm. Sean was coming to visit. Aaron hadn’t seen his brother since the day he had been admitted to the hospital, almost a month ago; even his mother had stopped by a few times to chat.

Aaron was really excited to see Sean. But he knew Sean wasn’t a thrilled to see him.

JJ and Emily had tried to comfort him at breakfast by sharing their smuggled hashbrowns and telling stories of their own families and home life. Spencer was more preoccupied with feeding his rat, Algernon, but he piped up every now and then to try to cheer Aaron up, like he was somehow acutely attuned to the emotions at the table and tried to steer it into a more cheerful direction when he sensed spirits were low.

“If all goes wrong,” Emily had remarked at one point, “you could always call security on him.”

“Or stab him with a pair of medical scissors,” Spencer had said absently, chewing on a toothpick as he fed Algernon partially-thawed peas. Aaron figured he didn't really think before speaking - either that (or maybe in addition to) or Spencer just hadn't been following the conversation, except perhaps Emily's last comment. Aaron noticed that half the time Spencer seemed to be half in his head and this often resulted in comments that didn't make sense to anyone but him, a fact Emily and JJ often liked to tease him about. 

The others had looked at him. He glanced up, more a habitual gesture than anything, and spread his hands open. “What? Sometimes people need a little… stab.” Then had proceeded to tell them all of the statistics he knew related to scissors and/or stabbing in the United States.

Needless to say, Aaron didn’t want to stab Sean with a pair of scissors.

The elevator pinged and Aaron’s head jerked up. Sean stepped out of the lift and glanced around nervously.

“Sean!” Aaron called. Sean jerked around and, seeing him, gave a half-hearted wave. Aaron began to approach him.

“Hey,” Sean said uncertainly when Aaron had reached him. He shoved his hands into his pockets, his eyes showing his wariness. Aaron pressed his lips together, slightly disappointed that it was all the greeting he was going to get, but then he forced a smile on his face.

“So… what’s new?” Aaron asked with forced cheerfulness.

“Ah—nothing,” answered Sean, who studied the murals on the walls with a sudden interest. Aaron had a sinking feeling that he was only here because their mother had made him come, and his smile dropped slightly.

There was an awkward silence. Sean stared at the wall. Aaron stared at Sean. The elevators pinged and the nurses scurried around the floor, orderlies wheeling carts or pushing wheelchairs, and Aaron all of a sudden noticed how quickly he had gotten used to the ways of the pediatric floor. All of it had become white noise to him; familiar.

“Would you like a tour?” Aaron offered finally.

“Okay,” Sean answered unenthusiastically. Aaron felt his heart drop to his toes, then turned abruptly and began walking in no particular direction. After a pause, Sean hurried after him, keeping himself slightly behind Aaron.

Aaron didn’t really know where to go first. Half of him wanted to impress his brother, to show him that the hospital wasn’t as scary as it seemed, while the other half felt hurt by Sean’s apparent dismissal. He just didn’t know how to get through to Sean. They hadn’t ever really gotten along particularly well, but now Sean was growing up and going through his moody, angsty teenager phase, even though he was barely twelve, and Aaron really didn’t know what to do about that, especially now. Ever since the diagnosis, Sean had been pushing him away, and Aaron had several theories for that, of course, but none of them seemed to be just right.

“Oh, Aaron!”

Aaron jerked from his thoughts and turned with a smile. He recognized that voice. “Rossi!” he said, cheering up slightly at the sight of the dark haired man walking down the hall. Sean stepped back uncertainly, which only drew the keen nurse’s eye to him.

“And who’s this young man?” Rossi asked, stopping in front of Sean. Sean eyed him without saying anything, so Aaron quickly introduced them.

“This is my brother, Sean,” he said, gesturing. “Sean, this is Rossi. He’s a nurse.”

“I thought nurses were women,” Sean said, his tone unfriendly.

“Sean!” Aaron gasped, taken aback, but Sean only glared at him before Rossi replied.

“Helping people is a unisex profession, son,” Rossi answered smoothly. “I’m lucky to be doing what I love.”

Aaron glared back at Sean, but before he could say anything, Rossi said to Aaron, amusement lighting his gaze, “Come on, Aaron. Be fair. At least he didn’t, oh I don’t know, steal a car?”

Aaron sputtered “Hey!” and Rossi just laughed at his expression. “We returned it!” Aaron defended.

Sean said “You stole a car?”

“I—well—”

“Yes,” Rossi confirmed with a wink in Sean’s direction. “He most definitely did. It was a convertible, too, one of the doctors’.”

Sean gave Aaron a new look, his eyes slightly wider. Was that… appreciation? Respect?

It figures that partaking in illegal activities would endear his brother to him. Aaron resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but he couldn’t say he wasn’t relieved that the awkwardness between them had been at least slightly dispelled.

“I have to admit, I’m surprised you didn’t tell him, Aaron,” said Rossi with a smile.

“I was busy getting yelled at by Dr. Strauss and Nurse Kelly,” Aaron remarked. Sean laughed.

“Wait so… why were you stealing a car?” he asked.

Rossi clapped Aaron on the shoulder as he started to explain. “I’ll leave you to it. I have work to do. Nice to meet you, Sean.”

With a wave, Rossi left Aaron explaining how he helped his friends JJ and Emily steal a car to cheer up one of their friends. As he spoke, he led Sean down the hall towards the room he shared with Spencer, nodding to a few people he knew as he passed. Sean seemed to be hanging onto his every word, his eyes bright with amusement, and he laughed out loud when Aaron recounted how he pretty much threw a millipede into a stranger’s car.

He had just gotten to the part where he was running down the halls to distract the nurses when they arrived at the room.

“Ah,” said Aaron, pausing in his story and opening the door. “This is our room.”

“‘Our’?” Sean repeated, following him into the room. He gazed around and wandered the room, eyes taking in the colorful, lived in side of the room with posters and books and decorations, then Aaron’s side of the room, impersonal and devoid of anything.

“Mine and Spencer’s,” Aaron said.

“Ooooohh,” Sean said with a grin, jumping onto Aaron’s bed and grinning impishly. He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively. _“Spencer.”_

“Shut up,” Aaron said, but he couldn’t help a tiny laugh from escaping. “My god, you’re _twelve.”_

Sean’s grin widened and Aaron dropped into the green beanbag chair, shaking his head. “Besides, it’s not even like that.”

“Uh-huh,” said Sean, still grinning. Aaron wanted to slap him, almost, but he was smiling as well. “So, where is he?”

“Spencer?”

Sean rolled his eyes and picked up the TV remote from Aaron’s bedside table, examining it with interest. “Sorry, who else are we talking about?”

Aaron’s smile sort of dropped off his face. “Radiation therapy,” he said. “He’s at radiation therapy.”

Sean wasn’t stupid. His voice dipped. “Oh.

“Y’know I kind of forgot for a second—where we were, I mean,” said Sean, his eyes dancing over the room. “What it meant to be here.”

“Yeah,” Aaron replied, his voice barely a whisper.

After a second, he cleared his throat. “Spencer’s going to be fine,” he said gruffly. “He’ll be fine.”

Sean didn’t argue. Instead, he pointed the remote at the TV and switched it on. _“House?”_ he laughed when he saw what show was playing. “You’re in a hospital and you’re watching _House?”_

Aaron knew Sean was trying to take his mind of Spencer being sick, and was grateful to him. It was the first sign of support he had gotten since his diagnosis, covert as it was, and he allowed the change of topic and smiled.

“Spencer loves it,” Aaron said. “He thinks it’s the most hysterical thing ever, and he worships Greg House like a god. Says he’s akin to Sherlock Holmes in the history of fiction characters. Not to mention, he likes the irony about watching a hospital show from a hospital, saying it’s like his life in an alternate universe. Plus the fact that he can understand almost everything going on without the descriptive audio. He thinks it’s annoying.”

“What’s descriptive audio?” asked Sean, watching the television screen. The volume was turned nearly all the way down; Aaron deduced Spencer had been listening to it last night after Aaron had fallen asleep. With his super-hearing he would’ve had no trouble keeping the volume low enough to not wake up his roommate.

“It’s a description between the dialogue so blind people can tell what’s going on,” Aaron explained.

Sean looked up. “Spencer’s blind?” He didn’t wait for Aaron to answer, instead turning back to the TV show. “Cool. Like Daredevil.”

And Aaron laughed. “That’s exactly what Spencer says! He always claims he’s halfway to becoming Matt Murdock.”

Sean chuckled as well, then glanced away from the screen as the doctors had to cut into a patient’s neck for an emergency tracheostomy. “Ew.”

“What happened to giving a tour?” Aaron teased.

“Pshaw,” Sean said, leaning back in Aaron’s bed and putting his hands behind his head. “Too lazy.”

“Who, me or you?”

Sean stuck out his tongue and threw the pillow at him, which Aaron caught with a laugh.

“We should leave when Spencer gets back,” Aaron said, placing the pillow on the floor next to him. “He’s probably going to be tired. But there’s a TV and stuff to do in the rec rooms so it’s not like we’ll have nothing to do.”

“Hm,” was his brother’s only reply. He studied Aaron, his eyes suddenly serious.

For a few moments, silence reigned. Aaron recognized the episode to be from season two, and he knew that Spencer had been forced to watch the series out of order when he missed episodes. He would be lucky if he ever managed to catch the whole series the way he watched.

“So… how are you?” Sean asked awkwardly. “Are you… alright?”

Aaron, surprised, took a few seconds to respond. “I… I’m fine. I mean, the symptoms aren’t really noticeable. Compared to a lot of the people here, I’m actually pretty great.”

“I didn’t ask about the other people here,” said Sean almost petulantly. “I asked about you.”

Aaron didn’t know what to say. He looked back at the TV, even though he couldn’t hear what was going on. House and Foreman were arguing, that much he could tell, but he wasn’t focused on the show, not really. Because he hadn’t really thought about it.

How was he? He was in a hospital full of sick and sicker kids than him. Dying kids. And he was still able to talk, to walk, to run, to do whatever he pleased. He felt fine, he really did, most especially compared to everyone else. Did he even have the right to complain?

“I’m fi—”

Then the door slid open and the voice of Derek Morgan called “Hey-o!” Aaron and Sean looked up to see the cheerful teen pushing Spencer’s wheelchair into the room. Spencer himself looked half asleep, crumpled exhaustedly in the chair with his eyes almost completely closed, his face as colorless as his hospital gown. His eyes opened slightly when he saw Sean, and he tried to shift himself into a better position in the chair, but Derek gently put a hand on his shoulder to keep him in place. “Stop that,” Derek said sternly as he wheeled the patient next to his bed.

“I’m fine,” Spencer murmured irritably. Derek and Aaron exchanged glances, knowing if Spencer was really fine he wouldn’t be so ill-tempered.

“Look, kid,” Derek said softly, helping him out of the chair and into bed, “just get some rest. I know you’re tired; you can barely keep your eyes open. As for you two—” and he shot the two brothers a narrow-eyed glare, “—if I hear so much as a sneeze keeping him awake, I will personally come in here and kick some ass. Clear?”

Before they could say anything, Spencer piped up belligerently, “Stop mother-henning, Morgan.” The teen tried to sit up in bed until Derek pushed him back against the pillows again.  

“You stop trying to get out of bed!” Derek protested.

Spencer sighed and suddenly the fight left his body. He fought to keep his eyes open. Without another word, Derek pulled the curtain across the room. He stepped into Aaron’s side of the room and his gaze met Aaron’s and shrugged. “The kid’s exhausted,” Derek whispered. “Radiation always does that to him. He never takes it well. Would you guys mind…?”

“Not at all!” Aaron said, standing up abruptly and gesturing for Sean to do the same. “We were just leaving.”

“Yeah,” Sean agreed as he got to his feet. Derek nodded and waved them out the door.

“He just needs rest,” he said apologetically from the doorway. “He’ll be back on his feet tomorrow like nothing even happened.”

“It’s no problem, Derek,” Aaron said with a smile. “We were leaving anyway.”

“Thanks,” he said, then nodded to Sean. “Nice to sort-of-kind-of meet you, person I will assume is Aaron’s brother.”

“True,” said Sean. Then Derek smiled once before ducking back into the room, closing the door behind him softly so as not to disturb the exhausted patient inside.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Aaron took Sean down to the game room, where two girls were playing an intense game of air hockey as they waited for news on a friend of theirs. The blonde looked up when the two brothers entered before nodding to the brunette. Emily turned around at JJ’s cue, her face lighting up in a smile.

“Hey!” she said. “You must be Sean.”

Sean glanced at Aaron. Aaron told him “Sean, this is Emily, and the blond girl over there is JJ. Guys, this, as you have guessed, is a my brother Sean.”

JJ gave a little wave before focusing on Aaron and saying worriedly “Have you seen Spencer yet? Is he out?”

Aaron nodded, a small frown creasing his face. “He was understandably exhausted but I’m sure he’ll be fine after resting. Derek’s with him now.”

JJ bit her lip. Emily glanced at her and smiled comfortingly before looking back at the two brothers. “Hey, are you guys up for a game of foosball?” she asked hopefully, clearly trying to cheer up her friends.

Aaron smiled gratefully. “Sure. Yeah, that would be great.”

The four of them moved to the foosball table. First they played boys against girls, then Aaron and Emily versus JJ and Sean, then Emily and JJ and Sean all teamed up against Aaron. For a while, they forgot about everything else and joked around light-heartedly. They weren’t four kids in the belly of the a hospital, trapped inside everything that that meant, in a world too bleak and unfair for people quite so young. They weren’t four kids who weren’t old enough to worry if they or their loved ones would live to see another year. For that moment, they were just four kids having fun. Four kids without a care in the world. And that was it.

At five o’clock, Aaron walked Sean to the front door. They walked in a comfortable silence, the tension between them having cooled almost completely into an easy companionship, which Aaron was deeply grateful for. The alienation and tension had slowly been wearing away at him. He loved his brother, even if they didn’t often (one might even say rarely) see eye to eye.

He thought about what Sean had asked him before Spencer had arrived: Was he alright?

Not really. No. Sort of. Sometimes. Yes. No. It depended: was he okay with the fact that he was most likely going to need—and more or may not get (he wasn’t sure which idea terrified him more)—a heart transplant? That someone he was beginning to grow extremely close to may be sick for the rest of his life? Was he okay with the fact he had broken more rules than he could even count in his first week alone? That he had made some really, really amazing new friends here?

He knew he owed Sean an answer, and he gave his brother an appraising look as they walked out of the elevator and stepped into the lobby, full of deceptively nice looking furniture and decor that no one would ever appreciate because they would much rather see a loved one than appreciate someone’s interior designing skills.

Aaron walked Sean to the door. Sean looked up at him and gave a small smile. “So…” he said, stepping out the door, “... see you later, I guess.”

“Oh, really?” said Aaron with a raised eyebrow. “Next month or next year? Just so I know so I can tell the nurses not to let you back in.”

Sean snorted. “How could I resist coming back after seeing firsthand the eye candy you’ve got hidden back there?”

“Sean!” Aaron exclaimed, though he couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re _twelve!”_

“So I’ve been told.”

But Aaron recognized the banter for what it was: a facade. That moment back in the room had been nothing but a moment of weakness. The Hotchners didn’t show emotion, and they certainly didn’t talk about them. The Hotchners were men, and even Aaron had to admit Sean was growing taller, his baby fat falling away, his body becoming harder and leaner. And Aaron knew that there would be no bringing it up again, no last minute confession of his feelings.

Sean seemed to wait to see if Aaron would say anything, but Aaron knew that, for better or for worse, the moment in the room was over, had ended the second he had said “I’m fine.” Aaron had rebuffed him. He had missed his chance. Aaron stayed silent.

So, the two brothers did what they did best.

They said goodbye.

And then they walked away.

 

* * *

 

A/N: Quick question for a future chapter to anyone reading this: what kind of music do you think Aaron, JJ, and Emily listen to, keeping in mind this is a modern AU? You can answer in the comments or message me on [my Tumblr](http://authors-are-the-real-killers.tumblr.com/ask). Thanks!


	9. The Sleepover

“So, Dr. Who or Lord of the Rings Marathon?”

There was a chorus of groans from Emily, Derek, and JJ, while Spencer sat up excitedly and thoughtfully considered Penelope’s question. He frowned at the obvious unenthusiasm and his sightless gaze darted around, his eyebrows raised.

“What’s wrong with Dr. Who and Lord of the Rings?” he asked, affronted.

JJ propped herself up on her elbows and laughed once. “Spence, you’ve already seen them all.”

Spencer pretended to pout and the others laughed at his expression. Aaron, who was lying on his sleeping bag rolled out next to Spencer’s, playfully nudged his shoulder. Spencer stuck his tongue out at him.

When the microwave beeped, Emily got up from her couch to retrieve the third bag of popcorn, which she poured into the large bowl where she had poured the other two before carrying it back into the living room of the apartment she and her mother shared. Derek instantly grabbed a handful.

“Are you sure your mom isn’t going to mind us being here?” he asked around his mouthful of popcorn.

Emily snorted. “My mom’s at a conference in Tallahassee. She won’t even be back until Tuesday.”

“No, the only thing that would get us caught would be when they find out that _some_ of us—” and Penelope looked meaningfully at JJ, Aaron, and Spencer, “—aren’t in their beds, where they should be.”

All three of them protested at once, only causing the others to laugh.

“Rossi’s on duty,” Aaron reminded them. “He’ll cover for us.”

It had been Penelope’s idea to have a sleepover, though at first it was only going to be a girls’ thing. But then Penelope wanted to invite Spencer, because the girls were planning on doing makeovers and she wanted to see what Spencer looked like with makeup on, but Spencer refused to go unless Aaron could come with him. And when they agreed to let Aaron come, Derek overheard their plans and begged the girls to let him come.

Emily’s mother was a very high profile surgeon, and she and her daughter lived on hospital grounds in a converted apartment that Mrs. Prentiss had paid for herself, so that she would be more easily available. Emily had previously been living with her father, whom her mother was separated from, but had decided to move in with her mother when her father took on a girlfriend. She wasn’t afraid of telling people how much and _exactly_ why she hated her father’s girlfriend.

“I’m more concerned as to why Emily has four extra sleeping bags in her closet,” Aaron said, one eyebrow raised.

“You never know when you’ll need a bag large enough to conceal the body of a human being,” Emily shot back.

“Who exactly would you kill?” Derek said. He threw a kernel of popcorn into the air and caught it in his mouth before adding, “This is a hospital, for god’s sake.”

Emily smiled creepily. “Little hospital patients who aren’t in their beds at night.”

_“Well!”_ JJ gasped in mock offense, looking at Aaron and Spencer. “If we’re that unpopular, maybe we should just leave, huh guys?”

Spencer blinked uncertainly. “But… we were invited,” he said innocently.

The others laughed. Conversation waned for a few moments, and Derek reached for another handful of popcorn. Emily’s cat Sergio jumped onto her lap and began to purr loudly, and then Penelope had an idea.

“Let’s play truth or dare!” she exclaimed excitedly. “What slumber party is complete without a game of truth or dare?”

Spencer rolled his eyes to the ceiling while the others chimed in their agreement.

“Sure!”

“Yeah!”

“Very true.”

“Okay.”

“You look thrilled, Spence,” JJ remarked drily.

Spencer just shrugged and let out an exaggerated sigh. “Let’s just get this over with,” he said dramatically.

The six teens sat down on the living room floor in a haphazard circle. For a moment, Aaron thought about what would have happened if Penelope had said “spin the bottle” instead of “truth or dare.” The games weren’t that far off, as for popularity at teen gatherings, and the group was exactly half and half from a gender standpoint. He hated kissing games, was glad Penelope hadn’t chosen it, but for some reason there was one person he wouldn’t mind—

He immediately shut down that train of thought.

“Okay, rules,” Emily said. “One: no leaving this room. There’s no way we won’t get caught then. Two: no messes or breaking things. If my mom gets back and finds any kind of mess, I’m dead. And… yeah, I think that’s it. I think.”

“Who’s going first?” Derek asked.

“Oh! Oh! Me!” Penelope exclaimed, fluttering her hand in the air like an excited student answering a teacher’s question. She cleared her throat, then scanned the circle. “Okay… Emily, truth or dare?”

“Dare,” said Emily immediately.

“Shit,” Penelope answered. “I don’t have any good ones.”

“I have a good one!” JJ yelled. “Wait, I have one.” She leaned over Derek to whisper in Penelope’s ear. For a moment, Penelope listened. Then her face turned horrified. “No!”

JJ snicked loudly while everyone demanded to know what she had said, but Penelope couldn’t even say. She just kept shaking her head.

“Okay,” Derek said, giving Penelope a strange look. “Anyone else have an idea?”

“Something that doesn’t involve another player,” said Penelope with a glance at JJ. Derek’s eyebrows rose.

Everyone looked around the circle. For a while, everyone was stumped, until JJ said “Oh! I have one.” At Penelope’s quick glance, she put up her hands and protested “It’s nothing like the last one, I swear!”

JJ turned to Emily and gave her a devious look. “First, tuck in your shirt.” Then, as Emily did so, JJ turned to Penelope and said “Go get a tray of ice cubes from the freezer.”

“Oh, God!” Emily exclaimed, comprehension dawning. JJ laughed delightedly. “Your dare, Emily, is to put three ice cubes down your shirt—and dance until they melt.”

“Oh, God!” Emily repeated over the sound of her friends laughing. She looked horrified. Penelope retrieved the tray of ice cubes and triumphantly laid them across Emily’s lap. Emily looked up and cringed. “Okay, okay. Just, no laughing!”

Aaron bit the inside of his lip to keep from doing just that as the raven-haired girl hesitantly cracked three ice cubes from the tray before standing up in the middle of living room. Her eyes scanned the group before she said “Well, here goes nothing,” and dropped the ice cubes down the front of her shirt.

She yelped loudly, almost screaming. A stream of foreign words flooded from her mouth, and Aaron would bet good money they were curses. Spencer giggled.

“Such language!” he said.

To which she replied with another stream of foreign words; Spencer pretended to wince. “Ouch,” he said, clutching at his heart. “You wound me.”

“Just do it!” JJ laughed. “Go on.”

“Wait wait wait!” Derek exclaimed, standing up and pulling out his phone. He fiddled with it for a few seconds and turned the volume up all the way before “Sexy and I Know it” began to play. “You can’t dance without music!” he shouted over the song and the sounds of the others’ cheering. Emily just gave him an incredulous look.

“If those ice cubes melt and you haven’t started dancing I will put six more down your shirt,” JJ threatened.

So Emily shrugged and began to dance.

Swearing the whole time. Everytime she moved, the ice cubes slid across her skin, causing her to grimace and let out another curse word. She looked—and this was putting it nicely—absolutely ridiculous. Derek laughed so hard he snorted soda out his nose and down the front of his shirt and onto Emily’s bare foot. Another stream of foreign words flooded from her mouth and she started hopping up and down on her one clean foot whilst trying the rub the liquid off, which only caused the others to laughed even louder.

All except Spencer, who sat with his head cocked to the side in confusion. But he didn’t say a word, instead rhythmically tapping his fingers on thigh in that absent way of his.

Eventually, Emily collapsed to the ground and turned off the music and yelled in English “They’re gone! They’re gone! I’m done! Oh, God, my shirt is soaking wet!”

It took Aaron longer than it should’ve to notice Spencer’s blatant incomprehension, then recognize why, and he instantly felt like the worst person in the world. From JJ’s expression as her laughter abruptly faded away, she had realized as well. The two met each other’s gazes across the circle and sat awkwardly as the others laughed, unsure what to do to rectify the situation—or, at least, make less exclusive than it already was.

JJ cleared her throat. “So, basically, Spence,” she said over the laughter, “imagine Emily making an absolute fool of herself.”

At the same moment everyone quieted, realized the significance of JJ’s words and looking at their youngest member guiltily, JJ grimaced and realized that was not the right thing to say—Spencer had never seen Emily. There was no way he could imagine her making a fool of herself or not, except in abstract concepts.

But he just smiled in that distant way of his, like he was seeing something the rest of them couldn’t instead of the other way around. “You could see her alleged _abhorrent_ dance moves,” he said with some amusement, “I could understand her rather _poetic_ expletives. I feel in no way cheated—Emily, you have quite a skill in insulting people’s mothers.”

To which Emily blushed, and the others laughed with a tad of unease, the tension in the room dissipating at Spencer’s words. After a few seconds, Spencer made an impatient gesture with his hands and said “Well? Emily, aren’t you going to ask someone?”

So Emily smiled and scanned the circle. Her eyes fell on Derek and her eyes narrowed playfully. “Derek Morgan,” she drawled, “truth or dare?”

“Ugh,” Derek said with a laugh. “Truth.”

“What’s the most embarrassing moment of your life?” Emily said immediately.

Derek groaned. “Ah, man, I don’t know.”

At that, the group uproariously protested. “You can’t get out of a truth!”

“Okay, okay! Fine!” he exclaimed. He thought for a bit, his eyes rolled to the ceiling. After several moments of deep contemplation, he began, “There was this one time where I was at school for one of those all-night school lock-ins or whatever they’re called, but it’s basically like a bunch of you literally get locked in the school all night to study for exams or whatever. I hadn’t even wanted to do it in the first place but I had to because—well, that’s a different story entirely. Anyway, so it was getting late, we were getting ready to go to sleep or whatever, and I was in the gym locker room taking a shower when I saw something move on the other side of the shower curtain.”

He paused dramatically and looked around the circle. “At first I was like, okay, it’s just one of the others trying to get the jump on me or something. So I called out to see who it was, but no one answered. And the whole time I heard this little skittering sound across the floor. So I was like yeah, okay, whatever, and I finished my shower and was reaching for my towel when I saw the damn thing: it was the biggest frigging _rat_ I had ever seen!”

“Watch your mouth,” Spencer said jokingly.

Derek grinned. “So _anyway,_ ” he continued, “because this is a truth, I will admit I was absolutely fucking terrified out of my mind, although, in my defense, I was thirteen at the time. I mean, this thing was at least as long as my forearm. Long story short, I _screamed,_ and when everyone else came running in they found me buck-ass naked, standing on top of one of the sinks while I swatted at the damn thing with my towel, trying to keep it away from me. Pretty sure everyone there saw, and they told all of their friends afterwards, and by the next Monday the whole school was calling me the the Rat-Wrangler. And that is the most embarrassing thing to have ever happened to me.”

They all burst into hysterical laughter at the look on Derek’s face. He grinned sheepishly at their reactions, bowed self-deprecatingly, and quickly grabbed another handful of popcorn to eat.

“I never thought Derek would be afraid of a _rat!”_ Emily exclaimed teasingly. “Big bad Derek ain’t so tough after all.”

“I was thirteen!” he protested. “ _Thirteen!”_

“So are you saying you aren’t afraid of rats anymore…?” Spencer asked slyly, surreptitiously reaching one hand into his pocket. Derek’s gaze followed the movement and when he saw a flash of grey fur his eyes widened.

“You brought that thing _here?”_ he cried.

Spencer looked offended. “I didn’t bring Algernon anywhere!” he responded. “He’s the one who sits in my pockets all day! How could I leave him behind?”

“He sits in your pocket all day?” Aaron said incredulously.

“Well… sometimes he goes up my sleeves or sits on my shoulder or wherever he wants to, as long as it’s close to me.”

“That’s so cute!” JJ cooed. Spencer made a face and Derek raised his voice slightly to cut through all conversation.

“Okay, Pretty Boy,” he said, cracking his knuckles and grinning, “truth or dare?”

Spencer raised his eyebrows. “Truth,” he said without a moment’s hesitation.

Derek smirked. “Your truth: what’s the meanest thing you’ve ever done to a person?”

The younger boy blinked. After a second of silence, JJ interjected “That’s a stupid truth. Spence wouldn’t hurt a fly!”

The other two girls nodded in agreement, but Spencer just snickered quietly. “If you say so,” he said in amusement. Which, of course, piqued everyone’s curiosity.

Spencer tapped his fingers against his thigh and leaned against the wall. “Okay, I’m not sure how to classify which… ah, thing is meaner, so I’ll tell you about this one. When I was in high school, there were a ton of people I didn’t like. Basically they were all horrible people, but there was this one girl I wanted to get back at. Nothing too drastic, just a little bit of payback that no one could trace back to me. I’m not usually a very vengeful person but this one I couldn’t pass up.” He shook his head and smiled wryly before continuing.

“Anyway, one day I noticed that she had a bad cold; in fact, it was going around. So before school the next day, I took the boxes of tissues from every single one of her classes and replaced it with a box of tissues that I had rubbed poison ivy all over. And I mean every. Single. Tissue. Every single solitary tissue had been rubbed with poison ivy, in every single solitary box. And they were big boxes. _Two-hundred-and-forty-tissue_ big boxes.”

“Oh, man,” Penelope giggled.

“She _and half the junior class_ got horrible rashes all over their hands and faces, and I also heard a few of the football team got rashes in their— _cough cough—_ um… nether regions. And, keep in mind, this was the day before the junior prom. By the next day about half of the school had gotten a rash at least on their hands. And, of course, hands touch just about everything. By the time all of the infected tissues had been used, the board closed the school and was facing an inspection by the health department.

“In conclusion, the school was closed for a week, junior prom was cancelled, a bunch of very nasty people suffered some very nasty rashes, and I was very lucky that no one found out it was me because I probably would’ve gotten into a lot of trouble. My illustrious criminal career began when I was only twelve years old and I have not looked back. Even if it was mostly accidental. The end.”

By the end of Spencer’s story, Emily and Derek were on their feet whistling, Penelope was cheering loudly, Aaron was grinning, and JJ was rolling on the floor laughing so hard her face was turning red. Spencer stood up and bowed at their applause. “Thank you, thank you,” he said with a grin.

“Now I know not to get on Spencer’s bad side!” JJ exclaimed.

“Yeah, man what did she do to you?” Derek agreed in amusement. “I mean, I have no doubt she deserved it…”

“She was just a mean person,” Spencer said innocently, without elaborating further. Then he paused, his face lit up thoughtfully. “Actually, now that I think of it, the time I got the entire junior class to fail their PSAT’s was probably meaner…”

When Spencer refused to divulge the story, claiming he had “already paid my dues! It’s someone else’s turn,” (despite his friends’ desperate begging) the conversation gradually turned to other topics, the game mostly forgotten. They regaled each other with tales of their own pranks, successful and unsuccessful, as both perpetrator and victim, all agreeing that Spencer’s far trumped all of theirs. Emily brought out a few bags of chips for them to snack on, and Penelope offered chocolate cupcakes that she had baked that morning, which only resulted in a food fight between Penelope and Derek that led to a full on war with everyone involved. Even Emily was too wrapped up in the battle to protest the mess.

Eventually they settled into their sleeping bags and resumed a casual, meandering conversation. Aaron noticed that Spencer was becoming quieter and quieter around midnight, and, remembering his exhaustion after the radiation therapy two days ago, considered what to do. He didn’t want to keep him up all night, but on the other hand, he didn’t want Spencer to think he was babying him by suggesting that they go to sleep. He had come to realize Spencer hated it when attention was drawn to him.      

Then Spencer’s eyes opened, and he blinked a few times as if trying to stay awake. JJ yawned.

“Looks like someone’s getting sleepy!” Penelope sang. JJ scowled.

“No I’m not,” she answered like a petulant child. Derek smiled and Emily shifted in her sleeping bag, and one by one they each got up to change into pajamas. Spencer’s pajama shirt was decorated with superheroes and emblazoned with the words “Trust me, I’m a superhero,” which Aaron was pretty sure Penelope had bought for him considering the fact she had the same pajama shirt featuring the female superheroes and in pink. Actually, Aaron would bet Penelope at least influenced all of Spencer’s wardrobe choices.

“Wait, one more truth or dare before bed!” Penelope announced from her sleeping bag. “Spencer, ask someone really fast.”

Spencer’s head raised and he blinked sleepily. “Wha—? Oh. Okay. Aaron, truth or dare?”

After a moment of silence celebration that Spencer had picked him, Aaron decided, “Truth,” because then he could get it over with quickly.

“I’m bad at this game,” Spencer admitted. “Does anyone else have an idea?”

“Good thing JJ’s still in the bathroom,” Penelope muttered.

Derek laughed. “Okay, I have one. What’s up with that ring?”

 

 

* * *

 

 

_What’s up with that ring?_

Aaron kept his breathing steady and carefully rolled over in his sleeping bag, trying not to wake any of the others, especially Spencer, asleep right next to him. He twisted the ring on his right index finger before holding it up to the light filtering in from the streetlamps outside.

The ring glistened dully in the light. It was a simple, silver band, with a microscopic inscription on the inside in a language that Aaron didn’t know. He had no idea what it said.

The tiniest of shifting sounds was the only prelude to a voice stating with quiet matter-of-factness, “You weren’t telling the truth.”

Aaron startled and looked over at Spencer, who was sleepily rubbing his eyes. Aaron could’ve sworn he had been dead asleep not thirty seconds ago.

He whispered, “What?”

“The ring,” Spencer murmured back, eyes half closed. “... You lied about it. You didn't really find it in a cereal box."

“...Oh.” Aaron said nothing for a moment. Then, “Yeah.”

Spencer nodded, then rolled over to go to sleep without another word. Aaron raised his eyebrows.

“Aren’t you going to ask me for the truth?” he burst out a little louder than he had intended. Both boys froze as a few of the others shifted in their sleep, slightly disturbed by Aaron’s voice before settling back into still silence. They both waited for several minutes, until they were certain no one had woken up, before Spencer answered, his back still to Aaron, “It doesn’t matter to me that you lied, Aaron. I respect your privacy.”

They lapsed back into silence. Aaron stared at the ceiling, but for some reason he wanted to tell Spencer the truth, for perhaps no other reason than the fact that he liked talking to him. The impulse was eventually too much, so he said quietly, “It was my dad’s wedding band. My mom gave it to me when I was admitted here.”

“As a memoriam?” Spencer asked in a hushed voice, as Aaron knew he would. He suddenly sounded a little more awake.

“As a good luck charm,” Aaron corrected. Silence fell for a few moments.

Then, “But your dad… he died of a heart attack, you said.”

Aaron chuckled humorlessly. “Spencer, I don’t believe in luck. Good or bad. Just wearing this thing makes me want to… to find the nearest tall building and chuck it off the roof.”

He could hear the smile in Spencer voice as he replied in barely a whisper, “Well, gee, Aaron, you wouldn’t exactly have to look far, if you really wanted.” A pause, then: “But I think there’s a reason you haven’t.”

“I—I don’t know,” Aaron admitted softly.

“So what else is new?” Spencer responded quietly, smiling.

Aaron smiled back at the jest and settled back into the sleeping bag now that the truth was off his chest, closing his eyes as he bid Spencer good night. Spencer took it as a cue and did the same, resituating his pillow under his head before falling still again, and the sound of silence once again descended upon the apartment, aside from a chorus of deep breathing. Outside, several floors below, nighttime traffic flowed through the city, the bright lights obscuring the stars mostly from view. Aaron’s breath evened out, his body going limp as sleep claimed him, and he fell into a dreamless sleep. A lone car honked somewhere far away. The squeal of sirens floated through the air, and if anyone had happened to be awake and looking out the window, a streaking star across the sky could have been seen even in the glare of the city lights. However, this time, Aaron wasn’t lying awake.

Spencer was.


	10. Sometime Past Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spencer and Aaron talk about statistics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, it's been a long time! I'm sorry about that. Real life is starting to catch up, and for some reason this chapter was REALLY hard to write. But here you go! Fresh off the press. For that reason there will probably be many errors, so forgive me. Happy reading :)
> 
> EDIT 11/24 - I'm still keeping with this story I promise! I've just hit a REALLY bad case of writer's block, plus I've had basically no time. But I haven't given up! I'm going to finish this story if it kills me because I know exactly what I'm going to do for the ending and I'm really excited to get there. So I'm really sorry for the wait but don't give up on me!

Aaron couldn’t pinpoint the sound that had woken him.

As the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling slowly came into focus, and the white noise of the ward at night gradually peeked its soft crescendo, he laid in bed and strained his ears to try to discover what had pulled him from his dream. Not that he could remember the dream; it had slipped away the moment his eyes had begun to open, but he could remember it had been a very good one. One he wished he could go back to sleep and continue enjoying.

Aaron rolled over in bed and sighed, but when he stopped shifting he heard it. A ghost of a sound, a light, rhythmic pounding, coming from Spencer’s side of the room. Then, when he held his breath and strained his ears, he could hear the tiniest, feathery soft melody.

Then it was gone, and every so often it was back again, fading in and out like waves on a beach. Aaron slowly sat up in bed and swung his legs down, his feet bare against the carpet. But the moment his feet hit the ground, the soft pounding froze. There was silence, and Aaron held his breath. Then, the rustling of clothes, a slight click, and a voice that was a dead ringer for Leonard Nimoy quietly recited “Three twenty-seven ante-meridiem.”

When the quiet drumming sound started up again, Aaron slowly got out of bed and slipped silently past the curtain. He was more curious than anything—he had never heard Spencer play, not even at night, and the tiny bits of the melody he had heard only made him want to hear more.

Spencer was sitting on his bed with his legs crossed, the keyboard laid out in front of him. His eyes, for once not hidden behind his sunglasses, were trained determinedly on some distant spot on the ceiling as his hands moved up and down on the keys, like a dance. Aaron stared at him for several moments, mesmerized, and he could hear the melody only barely as it trickled out of the bulky headphones Spencer wore.

Aaron waited for Spencer to notice him, not wanting to startle him, but when after a few minutes of Spencer’s obliviousness to his presence, he slowly approached the bed and put a hand on his shoulder. The poor boy jumped a mile in the air, his hands spasming reflexively on the keys, his eyes wide with shock.  

“What? Who is it?” he cried.

“It’s me, Aaron,” Aaron answered with an apologetic grimace, kneeling. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

Spencer took a deep breath and pinned his unseeing gaze on Aaron, his sight dead on. “Aaron,” he repeated with relief. “Oh, okay. Hello.”

Aaron bit his lip. There was a pause.

“Can I—do you mind if I sit?” His voice barely a whisper.

Spencer blinked. “No, I don’t mind.” After a pause, he moved over slightly on the bed to make room. Aaron gingerly sat, acutely aware of the only two inches of space between the two of them that Spencer seemed either oblivious to or uncaring of.

Spencer ran his fingers lightly over the glistening keys. Aaron watched them silently, thinking about how he should have guessed they would’ve been the fingers of a pianist, with their elegance and grace and wouldn’t he like to hold them and—

And he immediately clamped down on that thought, grateful Spencer couldn’t see the color in his cheeks.

“I forgot that you played,” Aaron said.

Spencer nodded and ducked his head. “I… I taught myself a while ago,” he whispered, his mouth pressed into a thin line. “I sort of had to… relearn when… well, when I went blind. But only at night,” he added. “I didn’t mean to wake you… I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t wake me,” Aaron said. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I play when I can’t sleep,” Spencer admitted, “but then, I already told you that. Sometimes JJ and Emily give me songs that they like and I do covers of them. It’s fun. I wear the headphones to try not to wake you but... I suppose it didn’t work.”

Aaron glanced around the dark room for a moment, trying not to think too hard about how endearing he found Spencer’s thoughtfulness.

“Can I listen to you play?” Aaron asked eventually.

Spencer raised his head, looking surprised. “You want to hear me play?”

“Yeah. Are you working on a song right now?”

Spence bit his lip and smiled a little. “‘All This Time,’” he answered. “It’s by OneRepublic. I don’t listen to a lot of modern music I guess, so I only listen to the songs the girls give me. I’m almost done with it… the… keyboard, there’s a… goodness, I can’t remember the word… a program, I suppose, that let’s me record my playing, so I can layer them on top of each other.”

 _Program,_ Spencer mouthed to himself, his face scrunched up in concentration. He looked concerned that he couldn’t think of the word he wanted, and almost… scared? After a second, just as Aaron was about to say something to change the topic, Spencer let out a breathy laugh and said “Ah, well, must be the chemo brain kicking in. Whatever. Anyway, the only thing I don’t do is sing. I’m not a good singer.”

Aaron had never seen Spencer look so shaken, but he clearly didn’t want anything to be said about it. After a few moments of silence, Aaron gently prompted, “So, the song?”

“Hm? Oh, right. Are you sure you want to hear it?”

Aaron had no idea why Spencer suddenly seemed so insecure and vulnerable to him, but his uncertainty only made Aaron want to hear it more.

“Please?” he said gently, his voice earnest. Spencer pursed his lips and Aaron couldn’t help his gaze from lingering there for a few seconds.

Then Spencer cleared his throat and unplugged his headphones from the keyboard, placing them on the sheets. “I’ll have to keep the volume down so as not to wake anyone,” he explained almost apologetically. Aaron nodded in acknowledgement.

Spencer put his fingers on the keys and took a deep, albeit slightly shaky breath. The tiniest gasp slipped from his lips, like air flowing out of a tire, and his eyes showed his nervousness. Then he bit his lip and pressed a button on the keyboard and then began to play.

Aaron had no words for Spencer’s playing. In barely two seconds he was lost in the song, spellbound, everything else fading into the background and he couldn’t help but inch slightly closer, holding his breath. The melody flowed from Spencer’s fingertips with breathtaking ease, like he had been born to play.

He found himself humming along under his breath, mesmerized by Spencer’s hand and the song they coaxed from the keys. He couldn’t help but shiver.

Spencer abruptly stopped playing, his brow creased. Aaron pulled away slightly, afraid he had given something away or done something wrong. But before he could ask what was wrong, Spencer said, “Was that you humming?”

“Oh.” Aaron blushed. “Yeah. Sorry I didn’t mean to…” His voice trailed off.

“No. No!” Spencer hastily assured. “That’s not what I meant. I meant… I mean…” Then—was Spencer blushing now?—he said in a low and rushed mumble, “Youhaveanicevoicethat’sallsorry.”

Aaron stared at him. Spencer ducked his head.

After a while, Aaron said, “Well… thanks.”

Spencer nodded once. He said, very slowly and very quietly, “Will you—will you sing? The song. I mean. Will you sing it. I have the—I have the words.” He reached out for a piece of paper on his bedside and handed it to Aaron, who was trying not to be extremely flattered that Spencer wanted him to sing. But he looked at the paper and there were no words on it.

“I don’t… know how to read braille.”  

“Oh,” Spencer said, eyes downcast. “Right.” He swept his fingers up and down the keys without pressing them. Touched, Aaron looked back down at the paper, devoid of anything but little raised dots.

“I could—you could tell them to me,” Aaron offered.

After a second, Spencer nodded and Aaron caught a glimpse of a tiny smile. “Okay,” he agreed.

So Spencer played slowly through the song and spoke the words to him in rhythm, but speaking without singing is harder than it seems, and every now and then his voice would carry a hint of melody. And from what little Aaron could hear, Spencer wasn’t terrible.

Aaron grabbed a notebook and a pen and started scribbling down the words. Spencer obligingly paused after each every other line so he could keep up.

When Aaron had all of the words written down, he waited nervously for Spencer to tell him when they were going to begin. He didn’t want to embarrass himself.

Spencer counted off and then launched into the song. After one false start, with Aaron starting at the wrong place, they eventually seemed to get used to each other and meshed, and Aaron’s confidence grew. He liked being a part of the music, and he liked how impressed Spencer looked with his voice.

He messed up a few of the words and some of the melodies, so it was a little rough at parts, but he made it to the end of the song without completely humiliating himself. Spencer was smiling as he put his hands in his lap, that tiny, self-satisfied little smile that made Aaron’s heart skip a beat.

“You really have a nice voice,” Spencer murmured, his body held completely still. Aaron ducked his head, a pleased blush heating his cheeks, and the two sat in silence for a while. Eventually, Spencer got up and leaned the keyboard against the wall again.

“Aren’t you tired? It’s past four in the morning by now, surely,” he asked Aaron, slowly and absently wandering around the room. Aaron wasn’t, not really. For some reason he wanted to stay with Spencer instead of going to bed.

So he said, “I’m not tired.” Then: “What kind of music _do_ you like?”

“Beethoven,” Spencer answered with a raised eyebrow.

“Ah.” Aaron considered that. “Actually, I’m—not terribly surprised.”

“Well, there is other music I like, I just haven’t listened to it yet. I have an open mind.”

Spencer smiled slightly, and there was another pause. Then Spencer sat back down on his bed, this time at the foot, and Aaron said conversationally, “How late do you usually stay up?”

“No later than I have to,” was the answer. A wry smile. “Most nights I can’t fall asleep before two in the morning, nor can I sleep longer than a few hours. Strangely enough, I slept better during that sleepover a week ago than I usually do.” Spencer pulled Algernon from his sleeve and began stroking him gently. The rat raised his nose into the air, whiskers quivering, and Spencer’s eyebrows furrowed with concern. “I don’t wake you, do I?” he asked.

At first, Aaron thought his concern was for the rat. Then he registered the question. “What? Oh. No, never. That’s why I’m so surprised. At how late you stay up, I mean.”

“The sleeping pills they give me don’t work,” Spencer explained. “I just.. can’t turn my brain off. I have too many thoughts.”

“I can relate. I used to be on the debate club at school, and not only would I stay up late the night before a debate, usually the night after I couldn’t sleep because my head was still in the debate.”

Spencer relined slightly, a little smile showing on his face. “Debate club?” he repeated. “Why am I not surprised? And let me guess—you want to be a lawyer when you grow up. You got good grades… studied hard… but didn’t do the extra credit.”

Aaron smiled back. “Well, you’ve got me pegged,” he teased. “My turn.”

“You want to profile me?” Spencer looked amused.

“It’s only fair,” Aaron pointed. “Now, let me see. I bet you were the quiet music-geek type.”

“Well, you have the geek part right,” Spencer laughed.

“Science geek or math geek?”

“Both.”

“Ha!” Aaron exclaimed, wagging a finger at him. “I can see it. Science before music. You’re a scientist.”

“Music is science,” Spencer protested. “And math. Actually, a lot of music is math… music theory is math—”

“I bet you skipped lunch and went to the library instead.”

Spencer made a face. “Maybe…”

“Science and maths were your strongest subjects but you still aced all of your other classes.”

“Not to brag or anything,” Spencer laughed.

“And I’m going to guess… you had a few really, really close friends who were also geeks and stuck with you no matter what.”

Aaron didn’t know what he did wrong but the smile kind of dropped from Spencer’s face and his eyes turned melancholy. Spencer bit his lip and looked away, the tiniest of exhales escaping his lips.

“Actually…” he sighed before pausing and starting again. “Actually, I didn’t have many friends at all in high school. Not a lot of high school students want to be friends with the freaky kid genius.” His voice carried a hint of bitter self-deprecation. “Ethan was really the only person I talked to but… our relationship was more of a rivalry than anything. Not exactly someone I’d consider a confidant. More like—I don’t know—frienemies?”

Aaron didn’t know what to say, so he whispered “I’m sorry.” Spencer only shrugged.

“I couldn’t really expect someone to make himself into a target for bullying just to be my friend. It’s unrealistic and unfair.”

Aaron just looked at him, shocked to speechlessness. After a moment he finally managed to protest, “You don’t really think that, do you? That you’re not worth being friends with?”

“I only meant that being my friend would incite trouble,” Spencer answer matter-of-factly. “The people who bullied me would bully anyone close to me as well. That’s why everyone stayed away.”

Aaron sat quietly for several moments, taken aback by the calm way Spencer said it, but now that Spencer had pointed it out, he could see little Spencer Reid, then in remission from cancer, only twelve and thirteen years old in high school and yet so much smarter than everyone around him. How isolated he must have been—how alone.  

“But I have Emily and JJ and Derek and Penelope and even Rossi and—and you too,” Spencer pointed out, interrupting anything Aaron would’ve said. He blushed a little at ‘and you too’ like he wasn’t sure if he could say it or not.

Aaron couldn’t help but echo, “And me too,” an irrepressible smile lighting up his face.

The two didn’t say anything for several moments. Aaron glanced around the room, which he could only half-see in the darkness. For a brief moment he considered the fact that this was more than what Spencer saw everyday; had seen for more than two years. As if sensing his thoughts, Spencer seemed to stare at him, his brow creased thoughtfully, but he didn’t say anything. For a while Aaron was almost sure that he had fallen asleep with his eyes open.

Spencer said, after what felt like centuries, “What are you thinking about?”

“What are the statistics?” Aaron blurted, like Spencer’s question had dislodged some kind of dam inside him. Spencer blinked; his eyes came back into focus, or as focused as his eyes ever were. He said nothing, however, prompting Aaron to self-consciously continue “I mean… all the doctors ever said to me were that if I need a heart transplant, there would probably be… a… ton of new medicines that would increase my lifespan. But he never told me what my odds would be now.”

“I’m not a doctor, Aaron,” said Spencer.

“I know! But you… you’ve probably read every book on the subject.”

“Only the ones that were in braille,” Spencer answered with a frown. He started wringing his hands slightly.

“I know you know,” Aaron said.

Spencer’s head dropped into his hands. “Aaron,” he said tiredly.

Aaron was quiet for several moments. Then he got up and moved to the foot of the bed, next to Spencer. Closer than he had intended. Their arms touched. Spencer almost pulled away, Aaron could tell, but he didn’t. More pleased by that than he should have, Aaron prodded quietly, “Please?”

Spencer sighed. There was a long, stretching pause before he answered. “They’re good enough.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Aaron, listen,” Spencer interrupted. “I know that’s not what you want to hear. I get it, okay? I really do. I do know all the statistics; yours and mine. And trust me, if I could, I would completely wipe them from my memory. Aaron, you don’t want to know the statistics because the statistics mean _nothing_. But if you knew them, you would let them define you. You wouldn’t be able to help it. But you’re _more_ than a _statistic._ Are you hearing me?”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Aaron said unhappily. “You’re not dying of c—”

Spencer flinched. Aaron shut his mouth. He’s been about to say _curiosity._

After a pause, Aaron whispered “Sorry. I didn’t mean…”

“You didn’t say anything wrong.”

He bit his tongue instead of responding, feeling awful.

“Aaron,” Spencer said. He stopped. Then he said again, “Aaron,” drawing it out like a sigh as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “The statistics. Don’t. Matter. They don’t.”

“I just—want to know my chances. That’s all.”

Spencer smiled slightly. “Odds and statistics are two different things. Potential outcomes are completely independent of each other; previous outcomes have no influence.”

“Ugh, semantics!” Aaron pretended to groan, rolling his eyes playfully. Spencer giggled, and Aaron swore his heart stopped for a second (alarming in and of itself taking into accordance his condition). Algernon’s whiskers twitched, and he turned and crawled up Spencer’s sleeve, eliciting a small smile.

“You aren’t statistics, Aaron,” Spencer said with finality. His fingers tapped up and down rhythmically and his distant gaze stuck contemplatively on the wall.

Aaron bit his lip and resisted the urge to sigh. There was a strange kind of relief he felt—a strange kind of gladness that Spencer wasn’t going to tell him the statistics, mixed with a cold dissatisfaction. The blatant contradiction just made him weary, and he rubbed his eyes before looking at Spencer and smiling tiredly.

After a few minutes, Spencer asked tentatively “You have an iPod, right?”

“Uh… yeah.”

Spencer fidgeted with the plastic hospital bracelet around his wrist. “What kind of music do you listen to?”

Aaron looked at him curiously. “Um… I guess I listen to… classic rock, maybe? It was always on the radio my dad listened to. Queen, AC/DC, Boston. Hard rock, alternative, some soft rock. I don’t know.”

Spencer nodded once, biting his lips and ducking his head. He looked like he was going to say something, but he kept his mouth shut.

So Aaron got up and grabbed something from his bedside table before sitting back down next to Spencer and placing it in his hand. Spencer’s fingers closed around it. “An iPod. Your iPod?”

“Do you have any earbuds?”

And Spencer ever so slowly smiled.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Spencer fell asleep almost immediately, his head limp on Aaron’s shoulder, having somehow practically curled up against him. His hand clutched Aaron’s sleeve in his sleep, and his other hand pressed against his right ear, holding in the earbud. _More Than a Feeling_ was playing. Aaron knew all the words from memory, but he turned down the volume even lower than it already was in order to not wake Spencer up. Aaron could barely breathe, the other boy was so close. His breath tickled Aaron’s neck.

It was past four in the morning and Aaron was exhausted.

But something still kept him from falling asleep. Instead, he pondered things silently in his head, trying to reason them out. _For some reason, talking to Spencer was so much easier than talking to anyone else,_ Aaron contemplated. _Because he really listens._ Other people only pretend to listen, but something about Spencer never failed to inspire honesty in Aaron because he knew that Spencer wouldn’t laugh or brush off his feelings. He never had; he was far too kind for that.

There was a degree of comfort Aaron gleaned from being by Spencer’s side. A kind of happiness just to be near him. Whenever Spencer smiled, Aaron smiled. He couldn’t help it.

Spencer gave him the kind of feeling that made him want to laugh, to cry, to run for miles and miles and scream off rooftops because he was so happy and he didn’t know why he was so happy and that made him frustrated. It was that kind of feeling Aaron got when Spencer laughed at his jokes or offered him ice cream or understood when didn’t want to talk but listened when he did… the kind of feeling Aaron had gotten when he had been a little boy and he realized his only dream was to go to the moon and his father had bluntly told him that he would never, ever be able to.

And that was the moment Aaron realized he was in love.  


End file.
